


The Elite

by mcrchris



Series: The Champions Trilogy [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Gold & Silver & Crystal | Pokemon Gold Silver Crystal Versions
Genre: Awkwardness, Crushes, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Multi, Original Character(s), Original Pokemon Trainer - Freeform, Pokemon - Freeform, Pokemon Journey, Relationship(s), Romance, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 17:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5172770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcrchris/pseuds/mcrchris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When aspiring Hoenn Elite Four member Candice Ramirez gets rejected from her dream school, she decides to make it up the ranks of the Elite Four the hard way, by collecting all the eight Gym Badges in the Johto region. With her best friend Emory Guerra as a traveling partner, they face harsh difficulties and brave fierce storms as they travel across the land, adding pokémon to their trusty teams and challenging the Gym Leaders as they go.</p><p>Except it’s harder than she thought it would be. Because there's this guy who she's subconsciously competing with and he's always one step ahead of her, she is literally traveling companions with her rivals, and you want to know the worst part?</p><p>Both Candice and Emory start falling in love with each other. And they don't even know it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Get Rejected (And It's Terrible)

**Ramirez Estate, New Bark Town, the First of June**

* * *

My name is Candice Ramirez.

I’m thirteen years old, and I live in New Bark Town. The only reason we moved to this place was because Dad’s application to the Kanto-Johto Elite Four was accepted when Jon – a Fire-type Trainer, also a former Elite Four member – stepped down two years ago. You could only apply to be a member of a region’s Elite Four if you were born in said region, see, and the same rule applied for Gym Leaders.

My dad’s Charles Ramirez. Did that sound familiar?

It should.

Because he’s a member of the Kanto-Johto Elite Four.

He was born in Johto, but he and my grandparents moved to Lavaridge Town in Hoenn when he was younger, where he ended up traveling the region and falling in love with a Pokémon Breeder named Rosalie Araya. That was my mom. I ended up being born in Lavaridge Town in Hoenn and I was raised there my whole life with my sisters Cadence and Coralie. Until we moved to New Bark Town, anyway.

Even though he may not look like it, Dad was a great Pokémon Trainer and an even better Battler. He’d been the Champion of both Kanto and Johto when he was a teenager, seventeen, I think, and that was pretty young for Champion, but he stepped down to travel the rest of the regions – Kanto, Sinnoh, Unova, and Kalos – before settling down by my grandparents’ home in Lavaridge Town in Hoenn. His Pokémon still lazed around our backyard, and his flygon would give me rides to school whenever I needed.

I attended a school for beginner Pokémon Trainers in New Bark Town – Elm’s Elementary Academy of Pokémon Training. I use to attend a similar one in Mauville City back in Hoenn, but I had to admit, the people were a lot nicer around here. But I wouldn’t deny it, I missed my old friends terribly – Elias and Archer and Julian and Aline and Jaslyn and Elyse and Jai.

And Astor. I definitely missed Astor.

Even though I wouldn’t admit it.

Though I still talked to them, I’d made friends here. Or, rather, one friend. But that was enough. He was all I needed. I apprenticed under Professor Elm while my older sister Cadence worked with Mom in the only pokémon day care in New Bark Town, nursing pokémon to full health. Cadence wanted to be a successful Breeder like Mom, but me?

I wanted to be like Dad.

And that’s why ever since I moved to Johto, I’d been completely obsessed with learning everything there was about Pokémon, even accepting Emory’s offer of working with him as an apprentice to Professor Elm, learning the type advantages and disadvantages and the battle strategies of past Champions themselves. All just so I can attend the same school Dad did – the Blackthorn Institute of Pokémon Training.

The Blackthorn Institute of Pokémon Training was the most prestigious academy in Johto. Its campus was lavishly designed with statues of legendary pokémon and its gardens were lush and green and the library was a separate building from the actual academy and was said to be the biggest in all of Johto. I could only dream of being accepted into Blackthorn Institute. Dad promised me that tuition was no problem, but no one could just _buy_ their way in. Everyone who wanted to attend had to submit an application with more-than-acceptable credentials. I was the daughter of Kanto-Johto Elite Four member Charles Ramirez and an apprentice to world-renowned Pokémon Professor Chester Elm.

But was I good enough for them?

I knew from the very beginning that I wasn’t.

 

The end of the world began when a faint _thump_ landed on my windowsill.

I’d been awake for a long time now, but I hadn’t risen immediately. Instead, I spent my first few waking hours messaging my best friend Emory on the PokéNAV I received on my birthday last year as calming music – or, more specifically, the song _Can’t Help Falling in Love with You_ by the musical group Jirachi and the Starcatchers – spilled from its speaker. His birthday was in less than a week, and he’d asked whether he should get a dratini, a bagon, or an axew.

Emory Guerra was the son of Ecruteak City Gym Leader Ladon Guerra, Master of Ghost-type Pokémon, and world-renowned singer Isolde Mariana. That was how his parents were able to afford Dragon-type pokémon for him, because they were filthy rich. Both his parents decided to move the family to the quaint and quiet New Bark Town to get away from the paparazzi and the press. But their efforts turned out to be in vain, as the Guerra estate was almost always flanked with photographers and interviewers.

Before I could reply that he should instead get a trapinch or a swablu, however, the _thump-thump_ ing continued, except it was louder this time. With a frown marring my facial features, I pulled the blinds open to see a bird pokémon pecking at the glass of my window with a sharp beak. With its cream-colored feathers, I noticed right away that it was a pidgey. I was the assistant of Professor Elm, after all, and besides, _who_ wouldn’t notice a pidgey at first glance? Clutched in one of its claws was a mail holding a seal with a familiar symbol, the paper scrunched up from where the pidgey held it.

I hadn’t expected any mail today.

When I pushed the window open, I inhaled the fresh air as I was greeted with the sight of New Bark Town spread out before me – all lush greenery and tiny green-roofed houses, with the exception of the Guerra estate, which loomed over the town menacingly with its purple turrets and its Gothic-style balconies. But no matter how impressive the exterior was, the interior of it was better, even if I’d only seen it once. I gingerly took the mail into my hands and watched the pidgey fly off into the distance.

Downstairs, Mom called my name to get ready for breakfast and to get my trapinch – Pendragon – out from under the dining table. _Breakfast can wait_ , I thought. Maybe Pendragon couldn’t, though.

With a roll of my eyes, I ripped open the letter to read its contents.

 

 

**Candice Ramirez**

**NBT 4611, #3 Pine Road**

**New Bark Town, Johto**

**Dear Miss Ramirez,**

**It is with deep regret that I write to inform you that we are unable to offer you admission to the freshman class at Blackthorn Institute of Pokémon Training. Your applications for admission to the institute as well as your supporting credentials have been carefully reviewed by the Admissions Committee. We at Blackthorn Institute appreciate the effort and care that went into your application and I assure you that your candidacy receive serious and thorough consideration.**

**We appreciate very much your interest in the institute, and the deans wish you well as you continue your education.**

**Sincerely,**

**Clarice Drakon**

**Assistant Dean of Admission**

**Blackthorn Institute of Pokémon Training**

 

My heart sank to my chest as my fingers trembled. In a fit of rage, I crumpled up the paper into a ball and chucked it into the nearest trash bin.

I spent my heart and _soul_ into that application. I worked late nights and spent weeks – _months_ , even – trying to assemble together the best portfolio and even offered to work extra hours in Elm’s laboratory just so Professor Elm could write me a reference letter. I was so sure that I could make it. Emory believed that I could make it. I wanted to make it.

This couldn’t be happening.

My sister Cadence and my trapinch Pendragon found me under a pillow fort that was hastily-made in less than a minute, wrapped up in all the blankets I owned as I sobbed my eyes out and blared out loud music about wearing black and hating life from the speakers. When she found the rejection letter from my dream school scrunched up in a ball by the trash bin in the corner of my room, she tried to soothe me into comfort.

“There will be _other_ schools,” she told me in an attempt to calm me down as I cried. “What about Celadon Institute of Pokémon Training?”

“Too far away from here,” I mumbled as Pendragon tried to calm me down himself by nuzzling into my forearm. The school was all the way in Kanto and there was no way in the name of the Distortion World would Mom _or_ Dad agree to that. “Mom would never let me.”

That, my sister knew all too well. Just last week, over dinner, she expressed her desire to attend the Verdanturf Institute for Pokémon Breeding, an academy for Breeders like her. It was the same one Mom attended. She had sorted everything – from dorms to shifts in the nearby day care to living quarters, only for our parents to disapprove of the idea because it was “too far away from home.” Like they knew where home was.

“Alright,” Cadence said, almost to herself, as she racked her brain, trying to remember all the academies I expressed interest in. “How about Mauville Institute?”

“That’s in _Hoenn_.” I reminded her. I’d wanted to attend Mauville Institute of Pokémon Training as well – the campus was much better than the one in Blackthorn – and I knew that some of my friends from Hoenn wanted to attend. But I’d asked Mom and Dad and they said no.

Cadence was quiet for a while. I couldn’t blame her. Because have you ever wanted so badly to comfort someone, but you knew that your attempts would be useless? That was probably how she felt about me. And if she did, then she was right. So she waited. Waited for me to stop crying, and even somehow managed to put up with the heavy rock music that was blaring out of my PokéNAV.

“Maybe you should call Emory,” she suggested after being quiet for too long.

I pushed one of the pillows off of me just to see her face. She looked apologetic, almost. The expression was new to me. She had never looked at me like that before. When I nodded, she got up and left the room, remembering to close the door behind her. When I heard her footsteps padding downstairs, I picked up my PokéNAV and halted the music to a pause.

There was a reason why I didn’t want to call Emory at first. Because he convinced me to make it to the Elite Four the old-fashioned way – by defeating all eight Gym Leaders of the region and collecting their respective Gym Badges. After I did that, I would journey to the Indigo Plateau and place well in the Johto League Championships and once I do, I would challenge the Kanto-Johto Elite Four members. And then I would travel to Hoenn and do the same, eventually becoming an Elite Four member myself. But my plan was a whole lot different. A whole lot safer, in my opinion.

Unlike me, Emory didn’t want to be an Elite Four member. He wanted to be the Indigo League Champion, and there was nothing could stop him from dreaming. But his parents made him wait until he was fourteen to be able to travel. We were an ambitious duo, but we knew that we would make it one day.

As Pendragon crawled his way up to my head and rested on his usual resting place, I scrolled down the contacts in my PokéNAV and tapped on Emory’s contact name. He’d left me a couple messages wondering where I left and only then did I realize that I’d forgotten to message him to get a trapinch or a swablu instead. I held the PokéNAV up to my ear and sniffled back the tears. Emory would know what to do.

After a couple of seconds, Emory picked up his PokéNAV. “Hello?”

“Emory,” I said. And he must have noticed that I was sad because the next thing he asked was if I was okay. “I’m–no, I’m not. I’m not okay. Can you come over?”

He didn’t ask any more questions. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” he said before hanging up the phone.

That was when I made up my mind to accept his offer as his traveling companion.

* * *

 


	2. I Sabotage My Best Friend (And I Feel Bad)

**Guerra Estate, New Bark Town, the First of June**

* * *

My name is Emory Guerra and I was the worst best friend in the universe. How did I know that? Well, I knew instantly the moment Candice–my best friend–called me, speech incoherent and interrupted by sniffles. I knew what she was crying about. It meant that she got _the mail_.

The one I forged.

She was so dead set on being a student in Blackthorn Institute. It was all she talked about these days. And I knew right away that they were going to accept her. Why wouldn’t they? She had good credentials. And when I saw a pidgey arrive that day and drop off a letter in her mailbox, I couldn’t help myself. And when I saw the dragon seal and where it was addressed from at the back of the envelope, I knew right away what I had to do.

It wasn’t hard. A quick search on the Porygon-Z search engine to look up an example rejection letter from the school itself, a clear of my history, a typed up letter in Gallade Word Office, a careful copy of the signature of the dean of admission, and she would buy it. After crying her eyes out and listening to a heavy metal song or two, she would come to call me and accept my offer.

I felt awful about it.

“Are you okay, Lys?” I had asked as she took deep breaths. I knew right away she wasn’t. I knew right away that she got it. I sent the pidgey earlier that day, and even watched from my balcony as it started tap-tapping on her window. “What’s going on?”

“Emory,” she said–pleaded, almost. And I’d be lying if I told you that the way she said my name didn’t at all make my heart race or anything. Because it did. And I couldn’t understand it myself then, but years later, I would. “I’m–no, I’m not. I’m not okay. Can you come over?”

I was quick to reply. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I promised before hanging up my PokéGear.

With a huff, I rolled out of bed and smoothed down my hair in an effort to make my scruffy just-got-out-of-bed hair look more presentable. With pizza boxes and half-finished cans of soda littered on the wooden floor of my bedroom, I was glad that she hadn’t asked to come over. Whenever my mom went to my room, she freaked. And she’d always bring up Candice in the conversation.

‘Your girlfriend must think your room is a mess,’ she would say. ‘Why don’t you clean it up a little!’

And I would say, ‘She’s not my girlfriend.’

By my bedside drawer was a pile of clothes, both used and unused. Most of them were either black or white. I contemplated on just grabbing a random shirt from the pile, but I pushed the idea out of my head. So I settled on pulling a drawer from my wooden dresser–black mahogany, just like most of the wooden furniture in this mansion–open and settling on an outfit. A pair of khaki jeans, a plain white shirt, and black platform sneakers.

 _Not bad_ , I thought as I ruffled my hair down once again. Not bad.

I grabbed my PokéGear and my house keys and rushed downstairs to the living room. If you could even call it that. I didn’t like the way my house was decorated–all mysterious and violet and dark with expensive furnishings. I felt more at home in my Grandpa’s house in Ecruteak City. Hell, I felt more at home in Candice’s house.

That sounded weird.

“Where you off to?” my older sister, Giselle, asked from where she was on her usual spot on the couch just before I was about to turn the silver doorknob of the front door to exit the house.

“Candice’s house. Where else?” I frowned. I looked back at her to see that she had our mom’s igglybuff resting on her lap as she ate chocolate pretzels. I glared at the pink pokémon, and it glared right back at me. The igglybuff–Iggy, for short–and I never really got along. I spent most of my waking hours inside the house trying to get it to shut up and stop singing. “You know Mom will kill you if she comes downstairs to see you eating chocolate on her white leather couch, right?”

Giselle rolled her eyes at me. “And you know that Dad will kill you if you and Candice go exploring for wild pokémon without Professor Elm, right?” Ah, I remembered. The spearow attack. A.K.A the reason I was grounded for a week and had my PokéGear taken away. Was she still annoyed at me for that?

“I’m not going to,” I swore before exiting and shutting the door behind me. As I inhaled the fresh air of New Bark Town and took in the sight of the town before me, I prepared to make my way to my best friend’s house. I promised her that I was going to be there in ten minutes, and I intended to keep that promise.

It wasn’t a far distance. She and I were technically neighbors, I thought as I walked on the dirt path that led me to my best friend’s house. But then again, everyone in New Bark Town was technically neighbors. New Bark Town was a great place to live, what with the nature and the flowers and the grass and the kids racing each other on their dirt bikes. It was the town where the winds of new beginnings blew, after all, or whatever that meant. That was what it said on the sign. But even though I moved here two years ago, around the same time Candice moved, it was still difficult enough for me to settle in.

But I knew I didn’t need to. Because as soon as I turned fourteen, I would leave this place.

I knew since the beginning that I didn’t want to travel alone. Most Pokémon Trainers had traveling companions to go with them. So even if Candice and I had completely separate goals–hers was to be an Elite Four member, and mine was to be Champion–I tried to convince her to travel with me. I’d follow her to Hoenn if she asked me to, so I didn’t understand why she wanted to take the easy way in and go to school and graduate at the top of her class to be able to challenge the Elite Four.

I promised her an adventure. But that wasn’t what she wanted.

At the end of the dirt path, I found myself face-to-face with a modest three-storey house with a green roof. The front lawn was a relaxing sight of freshly-cut grass and blooming rose bushes. Pokémon lazed around. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a slakoth, a butterfree, a beedrill, a luxio, a lotad, and a wobuffet. Tending to her precious rose bushes were Candice’s mom, Rosalie, and older sister, Cadence. It was something they did while the cared for the animals in the pokémon day care Rosalie ran.

“Emory!” Cadence smiled when she saw me. With her straight black hair cut shoulder-length and her huge brown eyes, she was pretty, I guess, but she looked almost nothing like her younger sister. “So nice to see you again. How’s Giselle?”

“She’s great.” I managed a smile myself. My older sister was a Pokémon Breeder herself, and she helped Rosalie and Cadence with the work in the day care. “Is Lys upstairs?”

Rosalie was the one to reply. “You can come on in, Emory, dear. Make yourself at home. And if there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask.” But before I could thank her for her kindness, she added, “Lys is up in her room. Make sure to leave the door wide open!”

I went inside before either of them could see the growing blush on my face.

I navigated my way into the living room and smirked at a framed picture of Candice as a short-haired, wide-eyed toddler playing with a trapinch. I went up the carpeted set of stairs to see her room, the first door to the right just as she’d described it. I exhaled a breath I didn’t even know I was holding and panic overwhelmed me. What if for some reason she realized that I’d tricked her by forging that letter from Blackthorn Institute? She’d never forgive me. She’d –

Candice interrupted my thoughts by opening the door, revealing the room, and her. Unlike her room, she looked like a mess.

Her usually-curly black hair was held up in a messy bun on the top of her head, and she was dressed in an oversized black shirt and a pair of tiny shorts that were the same color and _arceus_ , it looked nice on her legs, but I tried not to think about that, I really did. The circles under her huge brown eyes, red from crying, were dark and hollowed, and it was as if she’d grown five years since the last time I saw her.

I never thought that it was possible for someone who looked so disheveled and so messy to make my heartbeat race against my chest. Not until this moment, anyway.

“Hey,” I feigned ignorance and prepared myself for my best acting. I seriously hoped that the one session of acting class my mom sent me to two or three years ago paid off. “What’s going on?”

“Ry,” she sniffled, as she tried to hide the tears that were threatening to spill from her eyes. And just hearing her say that–the annoying nickname she had for me–was almost enough for me to give up the whole act and confess to her that they’d accepted her to Blackthorn Institute after all. But I needed her to travel with me, so I stood my ground as best I could. I couldn’t lose her to that stupid school.

I couldn’t.

“Lys?” I asked. And even if I knew what _was_ wrong, I still couldn’t bear to see her like this. And knowing that it was _me_ who caused her to be like this…

“I heard from Blackthorn.” She took a deep breath and exhaled. “I didn’t get in.”

Here goes. “Oh my arceus,” I gasped. “I’m–Lys, I’m so sorry.”

“I mean, I should have _known_ , right?” she managed a choked sob. “They only accept the best of the best or something, and I thought–I thought that it was _enough_ and arceus, I’m so _stupid_ and I should have seen it coming. I should’ve. Ry, I…”

I don’t know what came over me. But one minute I stood inches away from her and there was most definitely space between us and the next, I had my arms wrapped around her and she was sobbing loudly against my chest and just the sound of it broke my heart over and over and _over_ again and I was panicked for a second–couldn’t she _feel_ my heart?–but I manage to slow it down by exhaling and resting my chin on the top of her head. The scent of green apples and roses overwhelmed me.

“You’re not stupid,” I whispered softly. She responded by wrapping her arms around my waist. And I would be lying if I said that the action didn’t make my heartbeat increase, if that was even possible. I managed to ignore the glare that her trapinch was throwing at me. “They are. The dean of admissions in Blackthorn is obviously making a mistake by not accepting you into the academy. Lys, they don’t know how great you really are. You’re so smart, and pokémon–you’re _amazing_ with them. You’d be a great trainer. And–and there are other ways to make it to the Hoenn Elite Four, and you know that. It’s not the end of the world, okay?”

“Y–yeah, I know,” she replied, her throaty voice sending vibrations up my chest. I had to resist the urge to kiss her on top of her head. “I can travel with you.”

I could have sworn that my heart skipped a beat. And when she said that, everything stopped. Everything in the world just stopped.

“I mean, yeah,” I managed a chuckle, playing it off casually. “If you wanted to, I mean, but you said–”

“I know what I said. I was wrong.” she looked up at me. “But it’s the only choice I have now, if I want to be a member of the Hoenn Elite Four. I can leave with you the day after your birthday next week and we can travel together. Collect all the Gym Badges and stuff. Mom and Dad will let me, I know that for a fact. Traveling together … I know that’s what you want. And now I know that’s what I want. Promise me you’ll take me along when you leave.”

I laughed and ruffled her hair affectionately. “I promise. Now take out a notepad and let’s get on the bed with your trapinch. We have a trip to plan.”

I couldn’t help but smile and feel a little guilty when she took me by the hand and dragged me inside her room. I didn’t get why her room felt more like home than my house ever did. Only years later would I realize that I always felt like home anywhere she was because she _was_ home. At least, to me, anyway.

She rummaged through the shelves of books before pulling out a thin notebook–blue and decorated with a totodile-pattern design. She pulled out a pencil from her cup of stationary materials and seeing her like this, legitimately excited to travel with me, almost drowned out the guilt I was feeling for forging the letter from Blackthorn Institute.

Almost. 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you like this story, then vote for it by clicking the heart thing on the bottom of the page here to help me win some nanowrimo contest??? thanks!!! [http://www.inkitt.com/stories/40253]
> 
> no one's probably reading this that's kind of sad oh well i just want a place to put my fanfiction


	3. I Start My Journey with Pancakes and Love

**Ramirez Residence, New Bark Town, the Eighth of June**

* * *

_Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”_

_I tried to avoid the hurt in Astor’s eyes by diverting my gaze away from him and staring at the sunset in front of me. When he suggested a hangout on the highest cliff of Jagged Peak, I didn’t think that he was planning on guilt-tripping me into staying in Lavaridge Town. I loved the town and I loved the people in it, but he of all people knew that I had no say in the matter and I had to move to New Bark Town, whether I liked it or not._

_“I told you,” I said coolly, looking down at the trapinch on my lap. “I told all of you.”_

_And that wasn’t a lie. When the entire group – Astor, Archer, Elyse, Julian, Jaslyn, Jai, Aline, and I – were hanging out together in Jai’s house a week ago, I broke the news to them. But I’d told Elyse and Aline a month before I told everyone else because, well, they were my best friends._

_"But we’re gonna miss you, y’know,” murmured Astor as he placed his hand on top of mine and caressed it with his thumb. “Especially Elyse. She started crying yesterday, arceus damn it. And I was gonna cry as well. But – you know – it’s me we’re talking about.”_

_I laughed, and for a second, the kricketot and the kricketune stopped singing. “Yeah. I know.”_

_From the corner of my eye, I saw that he wasn’t looking at the sunset anymore. He was looking at me. And that was a pity, because the sunset was beautiful. The sky was a canvas, and it was as if a painter splattered it with tinges of scarlet and vermillion and saffron and cerulean. It was the most beautiful thing that I’d ever seen –_

_No. That was a lie. I couldn’t say that, considering that Astor was sitting right next to me. With his messy windblown black hair and his dark skin and his crooked teeth and his almond-shaped dark brown eyes, he could be plain. Unattractive. But he was my best friend. I knew the real him. People – even some of our closest friends – made fun of me for liking him._ He’s ugly _, they would say. They didn’t understand._

_He was beautiful to me – a crooked kind of beautiful, but still beautiful._

_I didn’t understand it, either._

_“You know…” he began. I forced myself to look at him. “You know I like you, right?”_

_I stared at him incredulously. I didn’t know. How was I supposed to? He always told me he liked Serena Lovell. Who_ wouldn’t _like Serena Lovell? We were best friends, yes, we had been since kindergarten, and sometimes, we beat each other up in pokémon battles and such, but he had never hinted to me a desire for a romantic relationship. And I’d been crushing on him_ hard _for the past two years._

_I’d waited for a moment like this for two long years, but I never imagined it to be like this._

_Somehow, I regained my composure and managed a chuckle. “We have the worst timing ever, don’t we?”_

_“Yeah,” he murmured. I tensed. I felt the exhale of his breath against my skin, and before I even knew what was happening, he pressed his soft lips against my cheek. “We do have the worst timing.”_

_I stared at him in disbelief as my face began to heat up. “Why couldn’t you have told me this two years ago?”_

_“If I told you I was scared, would you laugh at me?” The corners of his lips curved up into one of his rare smiles. His smile was contagious, and even if I desperately wanted to cry, I began to smile as well. “And if I told you I’ve liked you for five years, would you be mad?”_

_“No,” I supposed and stared him straight in the eye. “I’d want to do this.”_

_And I kissed him._

* * *

I woke up panting and out of breath as soon as my lips touched Astor’s – or, rather, those of Dream World Astor. It was pitch black outside. I’d forgotten to close the curtains the night before, and little moonlight shone through the glass. The orange-brown form of Pendragon the trapinch slept on my pillow, and was snoring peacefully. When I checked the poké ball-shaped alarm clock by my bedside table, I realized that it was 3:24 in the morning.

I cursed myself. Was I seriously _still_ dreaming about the last memory I shared with Astor before I left for Lavaridge? That had been so long ago. And I hadn’t stopped thinking about the memory, and him, since.

“Just a dream,” I tried to tell myself as I calmed my breathing and tried to slow my heartbeat, but I wasn’t very convincing. “It’s just a dream.”

But arceus damn it, it felt so _real_.

It took me a while to go to sleep after that – two hours and thirty-four minutes to be exact – but I was successful, and ended up waking up at 8:15 in the morning, when I’d alarmed. When the poké ball-shaped digital alarm clock began playing the catchy jingle that I slept through every single morning, Pendragon the trapinch began scowling at the ball and started chomping on it with his jaw, but I pulled him away to stop him from eating it.

“I should lock you up in your poké ball when you sleep. How would you like that?” I scolded and dragged him away as I sat up. Pendragon looked genuinely apologetic, and he hung his head in shame. With a sigh and a roll of my eyes, I decided to forgive him. Pendragon was my favorite pokémon. Yes, he was my _only_ pokémon, but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t stay mad at him for long.

With its short stubby legs, Pendragon decided to crawl to my lap and went back to sleep. I didn’t really have the heart to push him off. The trapinch had always been my battling pokémon when I had friendly battles with my friends back in Lavaridge, but since we moved to New Bark Town, I kept him as a pet. But still, I intended to train him up until he evolved into a flygon. That was what Dad wanted me to do, anyway.

As I stroked the trapinch on his back – something I usually did as he slept – I reached for my PokéNAV to check for messages from Emory. It turned out that he _had_ messaged, two hours ago, to be exact. Which was weird, because he usually wasn’t up before 10 AM.

 

_< <Emory Guerra>>: Excited for the beginning of our new journey?? Because I am!!_

_< <Emory Guerra>>: I haven’t slept since last night!!_

 

I couldn’t help but smile. How much sugar did he have last night?

 

_< <Candice Ramirez>>: i just woke up. you ready?_

_< <Emory Guerra>>: ‘Course!! I’ll pick you up at your house like right now and we can walk to Prof. Elm’s lab together to pick up our starters!! You know what you’re gonna pick?_

 

I smirked. Of course. I’d been waiting for this moment ever since I moved to New Bark Town and applied as Professor Elm’s assistant. Today – the day after Emory’s birthday – was the day he promised to give each of us a pokémon in thanks for our services.

 

_< <Candice Ramirez>>: yeah. wanna have breakfast at my house?? my mom makes pancakes every wednesday and your parents were out today right? my parents won’t mind._

_< <Emory Guerra>>: Pancakes should be a whole lot better than cereal.. I’ll take you up on that offer, if it’s not too much trouble!!_

 

Emory showed up at my house seven minutes later. I’d been brushing my teeth in my mudkip-print pajamas when he rang the doorbell and I’d forgotten to tell my parents that he was showing up, but, judging from the conversation I heard, his good looks and charming smile won them over and they let him in. But my parents said so during last night’s dinner that they felt sorry for him, because his parents had to work on his birthday.

I hurriedly threw on a pair of black ripped jeans and a tank top with a poké ball pattern before rushing downstairs, my hand hovering over the wooden railing that descended down the staircase as I sprinted towards the dining room. Emory was already seated on one of the velvet-lined wooden chairs that Mom had imported from Fortree City in Hoenn, and was making small talk with Dad. Once Emory heard the heavy padding of my feet, he turned towards the direction of the sound, and smiled when he saw me.

He looked a lot … cleaner than when I usually saw him. It must have been the hair, I thought, because instead of being messy and disheveled today, it looked as if he’d actually brushed through it. He was dressed neatly in a plain white shirt and black jeans. From the corner of my eye, his leather jacket was hung on the rack by the front door.

“Morning, Lys,” Dad said as he took a sip from his mug of coffee. “You look like you didn’t sleep at all.”

There was no way I was telling them about the dream. I didn’t trust them, but then again, I didn’t trust anyone with the memory. Not my sister, not Emory. They didn’t even _know_ that I snuck out to see Astor in Jagged Peak that afternoon. “Had a nightmare,” I told him instead. It wasn’t the truth. But it wasn’t a lie either.

“You didn’t tell us you were inviting your boyfriend over for breakfast.” Mom raised an eyebrow at me questioningly. She’d suggested it last night, and I’d said no.

With a sigh, I seated myself down on the empty chair directly opposite to Emory. As much as I wanted to argue with Mom that no, Emory was _not_ my boyfriend, I knew that I would fight a losing battle if I did. “I thought I told you,” I lied. “Is Coralie still asleep?” I asked, in hopes that she would drop the subject.

But it was Dad who replied. “Yeah, weirdly enough. She slept at seven in the evening last night. I thought she would be up by now.” Dad frowned as he re-focused his attention back on the newspaper he was reading. “Rosalie, did you hear about the current Champion’s younger brother?”

As my parents decided to share a hushed conversation about Jaime Fuentes’s younger brother, I reached for the plate of pancakes. Mom always made enough to feed the whole town, and Emory was hungrily wolfing down several helpings of it. He seemed to be enjoying himself. Upon noticing that the plate was fuller than usual, I frowned. That was when I noticed that Cadence was nowhere to be around.

“Have you seen my older sister?” I asked Emory as I stacked three pancakes on my plate and drowned them in chocolate syrup.

Upon hearing this, Emory’s eyes widened, as if he just realized something. “I didn’t tell you, did I?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Tell me what?”

Before Emory could reply, my older sister then decided that it was time to come in, and evidence of that was when I heard the door that led to the front yard creak open. She poked her head inside the dining room, and everyone seated at the table turned to look at her.

“So,” she puffed in pride as she presented the bird pokémon that she cupped in her hands. “What do you guys think of him now?”

It was a fletchling – that much I could tell. He was a tiny, reddish-orange bird with gray wings. Cadence had given him a makeover by tying ribbons to his legs and cleaning his feathers. _Pretty_ , I thought. But where did she get a Fire/Flying-type like that? Fletchling were rare in the area.

My parents nodded approvingly, but Emory looked appalled by the sight of seeing the fletchling in such a ridiculous get-up. “Fire Wing is a very masculine pokémon!” he protested as he got up and took the bird from my sister’s hands. Her hands on her hips, Cadence huffed.

I blinked. “Fire Wing?” Did I miss something?

He looked at me as if he just remembered that I lived in this house. “I got a new pokémon!” he said, beaming.

“I noticed,” I commented drily. I didn’t understand why he hadn’t told me yesterday, but then again, yesterday was his birthday and I’d been multi-tasking. Or, rather, reading books and obsessing about the perfect birthday gift for him, which I’d mentioned to him would be a couple of days late. He said it was fine. “Gift from your parents?”

He nodded. “I named her Fire Wing. And I love her! She knows Heat Wave and Overheat. Two really powerful moves for a beginning trainer, don’t you think so?”

I blinked as my eyes left Emory’s and stared into those of the tiny fletchling. With those two moves, the bird could incinerate me where I sat, if Emory commanded it. _It’s a good thing I’m on his side_ , I thought, _or I’d be roast right now_. I shook my head, and before I could reply, my PokéNAV began to ring in the back pocket of my jeans. If this was a regular dinner with my family, they wouldn’t have allowed me to as much as glance at it, but they were still whispering in hushed tones about Jaime Fuentes’s younger brother – whoever that was – and were too busy to notice, so I picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Candice. Glad to have reached you. Er, is this a bad time?” It was Professor Elm. And it was evident that he was hearing all the background noise – Fire Wing’s chirping, Emory and Cadence cooing over the bird, and my parents’ hushed whispers. “I was just wondering if you and Emory were ready to collect your starter pokémon.”

I frowned. “I thought we were to collect them at noon.”

Elm was silent for a while, before replying, “Candice, dear, it _is_ noon.”

I stared down longingly at my plate of pancakes. I hadn’t even eaten a single _one_. “We’ll be there right away,” I told him. After exchanging goodbyes, he hung up the phone. Professor Elm was a kind professor, but he disliked tardiness. I knew we couldn’t be late, especially for a day so important.

“Was that Elm?” asked Emory. He glanced back at the wooden clock behind him. “And it’s already _noon_?”

“I haven’t even –  you know!” I gestured down my plate and frowned. I turned to my sister. “Make sure no one touches this plate, okay? I’ll be back for them.”

“Off to start your journey now, Lys?” asked Dad as he looked up from his newspaper.

“Just going to get my starter,” I told him. “I’ll be back for my bags and stuff.”

With that, I got up and started lacing my black running shoes – gift from Dad – on. Emory grabbed his jacket and slipped his platform sneakers on. “Candice!” Mom called just as my hand touched the doorknob. I noticed that the three of them were looking at me and Emory expectantly. “Which pokémon are you going to get?”

I managed a smile and placed a finger to my lips.

“It’s a secret.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess what candice's 2nd pokemon is gonna be!! guess!! guess!!  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .


	4. We Begin a Journey with Badly-Named Pokémon

**Professor Elm’s Pokémon Lab, New Bark Town, the Eighth of June**

* * *

When we reached Professor Elm’s lab, Candice had to pretty much drag me away from the three poké balls that the professor kept under the glass casing. I was just _that_ excited. Excited to begin my journey – excited to begin my _life_. Excited to travel with my best friend.

Who was maybe more than my best friend. But I didn’t know it then.

“Whoa,” she laughed. It was pretty nice to hear her laugh – so melodious and pleasing to my ears. She was usually so uptight, so serious, as if there was something that haunted her. But when she laughed, that was when she really came alive. I looked forward to hearing that laugh more often. “Slow down there, Emory. You should have laid off on the maple syrup.”

It bothered me that Fire Wing, the fletchling that I held in my hands, started laughing as well. It was obvious enough that he liked her more than he liked me. I didn’t realize it then that this was going to be a recurring theme between my pokémon and hers. I stuck my tongue out at her. “Says the girl who _drowns_ her pancakes in chocolate syrup.” I retorted.

She frowned and was about to throw a retort right back at me, and she would have sent a burn my way if Professor Elm hadn’t showed up in front of us with two similar-looking devices in his hand. I noticed what they were right away. They were Pokédexes, and he had one for both Candice and I. I’d always dreamed of having one. A Pokédex was the reason I decided to apprentice for Professor Elm in the first place. (But you didn’t hear that from me.) It was a handheld electronic encyclopedia device; one which was capable of recording and retaining information of all the pokémon in the world.

“I take it that you know what this is,” Professor Elm smiled when he saw the awed reaction on my face. “Go on, then, now. Take it. This will help you in the fieldwork that I assign you.” With shaking fingers, I gingerly took them from him and uttered a breathless “thank you.” I had a feeling that she was going to tease me about this later.

“Fieldwork?” Candice asked beside me.

“It shouldn’t be too difficult,” Professor Elm explained. “Considering that you two will be traveling over the region, I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of that. It mostly involves capturing rare pokémon and taking images of their habitats. You two have PokéNAVs and PokéGears, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Candice shrugged.

The professor laughed. “Oh, believe me, it is.” He pulled out a rectangular remote control from his lab coat, and pressed a button. The glass casing over the three poké balls lifted up. “These are three of my rarest pokémon. I would like both of you to choose one.”

Both Candice and I looked at each other, silently urging the other to go first. And we would have continued if Professor Elm hadn’t cleared his throat and suggested, “Emory. Considering your birthday was yesterday, why don’t you go ahead and choose? If you’re alright with that, Candice?”

She smiled at the professor sweetly. “I wouldn’t mind at all.” She then turned to me and gave me a smile that was equally as sweet as the first. “Think of it as one of my belated birthday gifts.”

 _Gifts_ , I realized. As in, plural. I liked the sound of that.

My heart pounded against my chest as I reached for the poké ball with the tiny flame sticker on top of it. Candice raised an eyebrow at me, but she nodded. Upon her approval, I took the red-and-white capsule-styled ball in my hands, and clicked on the tiny button in the center. The poké ball grew bigger in my hands, and when I pointed the ball to the ground and ordered the cyndaquil out of it, the Fire-type pokémon appeared.

In a flash of blue light that was so bright that it almost blinded my eyes, a tiny pokémon materialized. It was a small, bipedal pokémon with bluish fur on top of its body, and a milky color on the underside. A small fire spouted out of its back, and upon seeing me, it squeaked out a shortened version of its name and curled up into a ball.

“Um,” I said. My best friend laughed and knelt beside the cyndaquil, and poked her head with a finger. I pointed the camera at the Fire-type and the Pokédex scanned the image. _Cyndaquil_ , it read, _the Fire Mouse Pokémon. Cyndaquil protects itself by flaring up the flames on its back. The flames are vigorous if the Pokémon is angry. However, if it is tired, the flames sputter fitfully with incomplete combustion._

“She’s so _cute_ ,” Candice gushed. The cyndaquil uncurled herself and started nuzzling its nose against her hand. I didn’t think that it was fair that the cyndaquil liked her better than me. _I_ was the one who was choosing it, after all. Both my best friend and my new pokémon looked up at me. “What are you going to name her?”

“Ardent,” I told her. “She was supposed to be named Ardent.”

She frowned at me. “That’s the most uncool nickname for a pokémon I’ve ever heard in my life.”

When she said that, Ardent leaped out of her arms and ran to my side, nuzzling my calf affectionately. She humphed and got on her feet as I smiled down proudly on my cyndaquil. “Ardent seems to think otherwise,” I teased her, and she threw me one of her death glares in reply.

“Whatever,” she said, and placed a hand over the red-and-white capsule ball with the water sticker on top. She took it in one hand and pressed the button in the center. When she pointed it towards the floor and ordered the totodile out of it, she couldn’t help but grin in enthusiasm as the blue crocodile-like Water-type pokémon materialized in front of her in a burst of blue light.

She picked up the Water-type pokémon and cradled it in her arms. “Oh, he’s _adorable_ ,” she cooed and started tickling its belly. I found it hilarious that she was more affectionate with pokémon than her own baby sister. But then again, I was, too, with my own sister. She then turned to me, her eyes shining. “I’m naming him Avalon. What do you think?”

She’d always been a big fan of Arthurian legend. That was why she named her trapinch Pendragon, after all.

“Not bad,” I admitted. She grinned proudly, but the grin quickly faded from her face as soon as her eyes met Professor Elm’s. “We … we’ll be leaving.”

“Of course,” the Pokémon Professor managed a smile. “Now, for your first assignment, I need you to travel to Route 30, the first route connecting Cherrygrove City to Violet City. There, you will find a man named Mr. Pokémon. Tell him that I sent you, and once he gives you the parcel, head to the nearest center and deposit the package to my account. Does that sound good?”

Candice glanced over at me just as I finished writing his instructions down on a notepad. “Done?” I nodded a yes in return. “Guess we’ll be leaving now.”

“Of course.” He held his hand out to her, and she shook it in pride. “I wish you luck on the road to becoming a member of the Elite Four. It will be filled with difficulties and different temptations. It was a road that one of my closest friends chose to take, one in which he succeeded as. I wish you all the best, Miss Ramirez.” Candice could only exhale a breathless “thank you” in return.

He turned to me, and placed his hand on my shoulder. “The path to becoming the Indigo League Champion will be difficult. Not only will you have to defeat the Elite Four, you will have to defeat around four hundred other Trainers – those who want to become Champion as well. Are you certain that you are up for the task?”

“More than anything,” I swore. And I wasn’t lying. I wanted to become Indigo League Champion just as much as Candice wanted to be an Elite Four member.

“I see, Mister Guerra,” Professor Elm nodded solemnly. At this point, he still had his arm on my shoulder, and moments like these never failed to make me feel so awkward. “Then I wish you both the best of luck. A year from now, I will see you in the Indigo League Pokémon Championships in Indigo Plateau. Train hard, bond with your pokémon, do your homework, attend to fieldwork, and I will see you two as champions among the rest of the Trainers.”

“Will do, Professor,” Candice cleared her throat and grabbed me by my wrist. “Now, we really must get going.”

“Of course,” he said, waving goodbye one more time before returning to his work. Both my best friend and I looked at each other uncertainly as he spun back on his office chair to face his work and loomed over the mahogany desk. Pen in his hands, he resumed what he was doing as if we weren’t really leaving at all.

“Let’s go?” suggested Candice, looking at me with wide brown eyes. At this point, Ardent and Avalon were staring at each other hesitantly. The cyndaquil was poking her long snout at one of the ridges on the totodile’s back. Of course, Avalon looked to be annoyed with the Fire-type pokémon. The relationship dynamic between the two pokémon was similar to the one I had with Candice.

I could only nod as she dragged me out of the laboratory, Ardent and Avalon at our heels.

As soon as we were outside, I watched as she stared out into the horizon and exhaled the fresh air of New Bark Town. She sighed out, as if she were already exhausted from our mini journey into Professor Elm’s Pokémon Lab. I knew it must have been a lot to take in – just two days ago, she had her mind set on going to Blackthorn Institute. No she was traveling the region with me.

A wave of guilt washed over me. I still feel bad about forging her letter, but one act of betrayal to my best friend ended up getting me a ticket to what I first thought would be the best thing to ever happen to me – journeying the region with my closest friend, who also happened to be the girl of my dreams. Except I didn’t know it yet.

“Let’s go,” she said, interrupting my thoughts. She looked anxious as she loosened her grip on the poké ball with the sticker of the drop of water and ordered Avalon back inside. Though the water pokémon whined at first, it reluctantly obeyed and disappeared into the capsule-styled ball in a mist of blue light. She clicked the button on the center of the sphere and its size decreased, allowing her to place the poké ball by the one with her trapinch on it. “We still need to pick up our bags.”

* * *

 

We got back to her house in record time, panting and out of breath. Goodbyes took forever, Candice’s mom almost cried as soon as she saw the crocodile-like pokémon on Candice’s shoulder, Mister Ramirez grumbled that she should have chosen the cyndaquil, and her sisters were busying themselves concerning me.

“Make sure to take care of her, okay?” Cadence reminded me, arms folded. The eldest Ramirez sister never looked particularly intimidating, but she did right then and there.

“Yeah!” the four-year-old Coralie piped up as she tightened her arms around the turtwig plushie she’d been hugging. I slung my backpack over my shoulders and pinched her cheeks, gleeful smile evident on my face. No matter how many times Candice had complained to me about how much she hated her little sister, I found her to be adorable.

“Mom,” Candice said. “I’m good.”

“Did you pack snacks?” Rosalie asked. “You take snack breaks every five minutes, how are you going to survive out there?” Candice looked pretty annoyed at that, and looked as if she was about to defend herself. “Do you need extra cash? Hurry, Charles, get your wallet out, get her a hundred extra, you know how often she splurges on clothes. Honey, we’re going to – ”

“Miss me so much,” the secondborn Ramirez girl finished her mom’s sentence. It was funny – I hadn’t thought that they had a mother-daughter relationship in which they finished each other’s sentences. “Yeah, yeah. Look, uh, Mom, I have to go,” she murmured under her breath as she looked down on her black brand-name running shoes, quiet, yet loud enough for Rosalie to hear.

“Of course, sweetie,” said Rosalie, who was beginning to look at Charles nervously. “Now, if ever you need anything, call us, alright? Now, do you have your map? How about your PokéNAV? Make sure not to lose it, alright? And be home for Christmas and New Year’s and your birthday and my birthday and your father’s birthday and your sister’s, do you understand?”

“Mom, I get it,” Candice snapped, but she looked apologetic, though, right after she realized that her tone was rude. But she didn’t apologize. The Candice I know didn’t apologize, ever. “Now, uh, Ry and I want to get to Cherrygrove before nightfall. So, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course, of course,” Rosalie said, reluctantly letting go of her daughter. She smiled at me as Candice and Charles exchanged their goodbyes. I didn’t mean to listen in, but I only heard traces of their conversation – “take care of Pendragon,” “remember what I told you about your boyfriend,” “Dad, he’s not my boyfriend.” You know, casual stuff like that.

Rosalie wrapped me into a hug herself. The woman was about my height  – a couple of inches shorter, actually, the same height as my mom–and it made me sad. My mom never hugged me like this. “Take care of her, alright?” she laughed, ruffling my hair in the process. “And she’s a real Ramirez girl, has her mood swings and whatnot. I ask you to stick by her until the end of your journey. Could you do that for me?”

“Of course,” I said, letting a tiny smile flit across my lips, “I promise.”

Only when we were leaving Candice’s house–I couldn’t really call it her home, she never felt home in that place, she always felt at home with _him_ –did I realize that I wanted to keep that promise. To stick with her until the very end. But I didn’t get to.

“We have a long journey ahead of us,” Candice turned to me as we walked to the dirt path leading out of New Bark Town and past the signpost that greeted **Welcome to New Bark Town!** She gazed into the roads leading to Cherrygrove City and it was a dramatic sight to see before me – my best friend gazing into the roads leading to her future.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “On three?”

It was something that we did. Every single time before Candice and I would embark on a seemingly-difficult assignment under orders of Professor Elm, we would take deep breaths and calm ourselves down before doing whatever it was we had to do. I half-expected her to shake her head, but, much to my surprise, a smile lit her facial features.

She always looked pretty when she smiled.

“One,” she exhaled, and turned to face the road before her, smile on her face.

“Two,” I said, picking up my cyndaquil and placing her on my shoulder.

“Three!” we both yelled in unison before taking off. 

* * *

 

We ran where the wind took us, Running Shoes-clad feet hitting the road leading to Cherrygrove City as fast as we could. Our PokéNAVs beeped every step of the way with concerned messages from family members and new assignments from Professor Elm and his aides. But not a single one of us looked back to the town that we were just about to leave.

It was nightfall when we reached Cherrygrove City – the City of Cute, Fragrant Flowers, or so the sign said. It was a quaint, pretty town with pink-roofed houses and a lot more gardens and greenery than I could count, but Candice and I could care less about scenery as we rushed to the nearest Center. She and I were panting and out of breath from sprinting from New Bark Town, resting our pokémon in the Cherrygrove City Pokémon Center. The aspiring Elite Four member was most definitely one of the least athletic people I knew, so when I found out that she was absolutely raring to go, I was surprised.

“We could bike up to Route Thirty and make it to Mr. Pokémon’s house before ten. And then we could just camp by the woods outside of his house and once dawn breaks, we could train our pokémon and come pick up Professor Elm’s parcel by noon.” Candice had suggested in between gulps of water from her canteen. “Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?”

I shook my head. “Not really, no,” I admitted, but obviously enough, she wasn’t taking a no for an answer. And it’s like I could tell her no, anyway. My number one problem with Candice Ramirez? She can get me to do whatever she wanted me to do. She could just look at me with those eyes and bat her thick eyelashes and pout those ruby red lips and she could get me to do anything, no threatening or violence or force required.

“Come on!” she whined. She gestured to Fire Wing. Even my wide-eyed fletchling was siding with Candice. “It’s gonna be fun, Ry,”

And if I didn’t give in by the time she batted her eyelashes, she would use the nickname she had in store specially for me – Ry, from Emo _ry_ , get it? – and that would just about do it. Every time she would use that nickname on me, my heartbeat would match the pace of a drumline from a heavy metal song. I didn’t understand why, then, but now…

I sighed out in defeat. “Fine.”

She grinned and clapped her hands together in excitement. Her eyes always lit up when she smiled. Even Fire Wing flapped his wings around, emitting tiny bursts of flame from his beak. I learned the hard way that he did that whenever he was excited – and the bad thing was, he got excited a lot. The little guy had charred out little tufts of my hair during my run from New Bark Town to Cherrygrove.

And that was how I found myself with my fingers clutched tightly around the flashlight, with Candice clinging on to me because she was scared of the dark. My dad had said that Route Thirty would be bustling with Trainers in the morning, but when it was pitch-black outside, the route was eerily quiet except for the singing of the kricketot and the kricketune as well as Candice’s heartbeat pounding against her chest and the splashing of the poliwag and the magikarp in the ponds in the route.

For someone who had an unnatural fear of dark areas, it was weird that she would suggest something like this.

“First day of the journey was boring, don’t you think?” she wrinkled her nose in distaste, her upper lip curled. “I half-expected us to get chased by a rival team or to meet someone new to be our traveling companion throughout the rest of the region. But apparently not.”

“You’ve been reading way too many books about pokémon journeys,” I told her.

“I’ve been reading way too many books in general,” she corrected me.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that most pokémon journeys went nothing like Ash Ketchum’s adventures. I didn’t want to warp her reality, didn’t want her to think that most journeys would be walking, walking, the occasional Trainer Battle, and even more walking. But I didn’t want to let her find that out for herself, either. I wanted the adventure to be as fun for her as possible.

The route was mostly composed of grassy fields where nothing grew but weeds, and a single dirt path stretched out from Cherrygrove City. The trees swayed along with the night breeze and when I looked up, I could see every single constellation known to man in the spring night sky. This was one of the perks of living in a mostly-rural area. You could see the stars well from out here.

Before I could press on further, Candice stopped. She glanced back at me, a small – almost unnoticeable – smile on her face. “This a good spot to stay the night?”

I looked around me. She made us stop around a quiet clearing of trees and bushes. It was the perfect spot to stay the night and end our journey for the day, but I didn’t say that out loud. Instead, I set down my heavy backpack and began to unroll my sleeping bag, and she did the same. Candice packed light – her backpack wasn’t as bulky as mine, I noticed.

When the two of us were settled down inside our sleeping bags, with Ardent beside us to take watch, I decided to ask the question that’s been bugging me since we left: “Why did you want to continue on and sleep outdoors? We could’ve slept in the Pokémon Center. You hate the outdoors.”

With a sigh, she answered, though her answer was so quiet – which was unlike her, truth be told, she was always so animated around me – that I almost couldn’t hear her. “Pokémon Center quarters aren’t co-ed. We can’t share a room if we were bunking in the center and … I don’t know. I need you near me tonight.”

“And besides,” she said before I could say anything. With her index finger directed to the sky, she started tracing the stars together to form some of my favorite constellations–the Ursaring Major, the Ursaring Minor, Orion the Hunter, the Dragonite, and many others. I couldn’t see her much due to the dim lighting emitted from Ardent’s fires, but I could see the way her face lit up.

“You can see the stars well here.”

And that was the last thing she said before rolling over to her side and falling into a deep sleep.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah she's getting a totodile  
> idk. i always choose the water starter.  
> don't you?


	5. We Meet Mr. Pokémon and are Stuck Babysitting

**Mr. Pokémon’s House, Route 31, the Ninth of June**

* * *

 

_Even when camping in the great outdoors, I found that I was still dreaming about Astor Black._

_He looked different compared to my previous dreams–in this one, he was most definitely aged-up. He still had the same taste in clothing: khaki pants and designer running shoes and beanies to cover the deep scar on his forehead. He wore thick-rimmed glasses, which was new, I thought, and was running his thumb through a faded picture of him and me._

_I remembered the day the picture was taken all too well. On his thirteenth birthday party, his mom went all-out and rented a hotel ballroom._ A hotel ballroom. _I was the girl with the messy dark hair and a black dress and a pair of heels the same color, arms draped over his shoulders, and he grinned down at me like I was the most beautiful girl in the room. “I can’t believe you’re making me dance,” I had complained, but I enjoyed it, having his arms wrapped around my waist. He simply laughed. And that was how the picture was taken – Astor caught mid-laugh, me sending him one of my softer glares, usually reserved for him._

_Astor sighed heavily as a pokémon – one I recognized as a pancham – nuzzled his hand. It cried out in protest, but all Astor could do was ruffle the fur on the pancham’s head and sigh again. “I know, Cyber, I know. The others are waiting for me.” The panda-like pokémon seemed to understand as Astor swallowed audibly, as if simply seeing a picture of me made his heart ache. Which it looked like it did._

_“I always thought that she would be starting the journey with me. I know it’s stupid,” he managed a little laugh, “but there’s a part of me that always thought she would come back. You know, to Hoenn, as soon as she was of age. But she isn’t … she’s not here with me.”_

_It felt weird listening to something like this, I thought, and I theorized that the dream was my subconscious screwing with my emotions, telling me that even though it’s been years, I still had a crush on Astor Black._

_I hated my subconscious._

_“I miss her, Cyber,” admitted Astor. “I do. But I can’t just sit here and mope. I have a journey to begin.”_

_And with that he got up and dusted his clothes off. Picking the thumbtack up with his nimble fingers, he pinned the photo to the collage of pictures above the oak wood desk in the corner of his room. I had a moment to look at his collection of pictures – I spotted one of Aline, Elyse, and I in a triple battle against Elias, Archer, and Astor. Another one was a picture I took of Astor helping Archer shop for the perfect birthday gift for Aline. Another was a picture of Astor and I following Julian and his crush, Stella, around in the mall the entire day, because Stella had refused to go on a date with him unless there was another “couple” there._

_“Let’s go, Cyber,” said Astor, snapping me back into reality – if it was reality. He shouldered his backpack and took a deep breath, as if to mentally prepare himself for a complete storm of the journey that was about to come. “Archer, Jai, and Elias are waiting right downstairs.”_

_Exiting his bedroom, he closed the door behind him. I knew it was just a dream but his dream – it felt oddly real. And if it was, then that meant only one thing._

_Today was the day my friends in Lavaridge Town started their journey in Hoenn to collect all eight Gym Badges of the region and compete in the Ever Grande League Championships._

* * *

 

Later that day, after tidying up and removing the twigs that Emory decided to knot in my hair while I was asleep, Emory, Fire Wing, Pendragon, and I stood in front of Mr. Pokémon’s modest house. A cottage in the woods with a pink roof, white brick walls, and potted plants on the windowsill, it wasn’t much to look at. But the area and greenery surrounding it was peaceful and I would have loved more than anything to live in a house like this one in the future.

The door swung open as soon as Emory knocked on the wooden door tentatively. The next thing we knew, an impeccably-dressed man who looked to be in his fifties was staring down at us in confusion, as if wondering how two youngsters ended up in his quaint house.

“Could I … could I help you?” he asked, pushing his glasses over the bridge of his nose.

“Uh, yeah,” I said before I knew that the words were coming out of my mouth. “My name’s Candice. This is Emory, and uh, we’re here to pick up that parcel for Professor Elm? We’re his assistants.”

“Oh, of course,” the man – whom I assumed was Mr. Pokémon – blinked dumbly, as if he hadn’t thought of that. He frowned. “Say, aren’t you two a little bit too young to be two of Professor Elm’s aides?”

Emory looked at me uncertainly before replying to Mr. Pokémon. “Well, uh, we’re not really aides, not really. We’re just assistants. And we, uh, volunteered.” Emory used his hands to explain – he was fond of hand gestures, I’m not sure if he knew it, though – as if his hand gestures would make it easier to explain. But it hadn’t.

I knew that Mr. Pokémon was iffy about handing Professor Elm’s parcel to two fourteen-year-old kids who came knocking on his door at ten-thirty in the morning. But with a sigh, he gave us a “I’ll be right with you” and a pointed look as if to tell us not to come in, and came back with something that looked very much like a … an egg.

An egg – blue with tints of white on it. I glanced over at Emory, and he looked confused as well.

“Professor Elm is known for his research on breeding,” explained Mr. Pokémon, as if the questions in our thoughts were loud enough for him to hear. “He’s planning on developing an incubator to be able to hatch pokémon eggs much more quickly. I found this one in the outskirts of Fortree City in Hoenn. I promised Professor Elm that he could experiment on it as long as he tells me which pokémon it hatches into when the time is right.”

Emory nods, his face a mask of understanding, except that masked morphed into one of pure bewilderment when Mr. Pokémon plopped the egg down on his hands. I was grateful that he hadn’t handed it to me, because I was the clumsiest person alive and I would just drop the egg, truth be told.

“Now, uh, we should get going,” I excused before Mr. Pokémon could say anything else. I’ve been around Pokémon Professors and Pokémon Collectors like him before – being an assistant of Professor Elm meant having met some of the most popular Pokémon Professors in the world, Professor Oak, Professor Birch, and Professor Juniper being only a couple of them – and if there was anything I knew about them, I knew that they talked. A lot. “We’re headed to Violet City and delivering the parcel to Professor Elm through his PC storage.”

“Ah, of course,” Mr. Pokémon said, a gleeful smile on his face, “Best of luck to you two youngsters!”

And with that, he shut the door on our faces.

Still looking a bit taken aback, Emory turned towards me, looked down at the egg in his hands, and then up at me. “Candice,” he said quietly at first, then rising up to a crescendo, “I went on this journey to be Indigo League Champion, not to be a babysitter!”

“At least it’s not alive,” I muttered. Before he could say anything, I shushed him. “Relax, Ry. All we need to do is get to Violet City as quickly as we can, we can drop off the egg, and then resume with our journey. We don’t have to babysit it for long.” And what did he know about babysitting, anyway? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. He’s never had to take care of pokémon or younger siblings before.

“Sure,” Emory inhaled in the fresh afternoon breeze of Route Thirty. “Doesn’t sound too hard, right?”

* * *

 

He was wrong. Because by nightfall, we were still walking to Violet City.

We would have reached the Violet City Pokémon Center by now had we ridden on our bikes, but both Emory and I agreed that we should take it slow, because if we went on our bikes, then the best case scenario was that we made it to Violet City before sunset, but the worst case scenario was that we accidentally tripped on a log or something equally as stupid and smashed the egg into smithereens in the process. And Professor Elm might not be the kind of professor to go ballistic, but instead, he would shake his head and give you a look of disappointment that would lower your self-esteem for months on end.

We decided to set up camp on the spot where we decided that we shouldn’t go any further, for it was much too dark. While Fire Wing and Pendragon gathered sticks and dried leaves for firewood, Emory and I got to work on unrolling sleeping bags and preparing the kitchenware that he made me carry. I was no cook, but, just my luck, Emory could spice up just about anything with the right ingredients in less than ten minutes. I wanted to watch him cook – I liked watching him cook, for some strange reason – but he shooed me away and made me pick some berries.

With Ardent and Avalon, I searched for pecha and oran berries for dessert as he cooked up a stew. Aggravated after not being able to find any berries after thirty minutes of searching, I spent half the time scolding Ardent and Avalon for tripping each other and sending Water Gun and Smokescreen attacks at the other’s direction. In the midst of trying to yell at my totodile, I spotted a berry tree in the corner of my eye, and I rushed towards it, both starter pokémon at my heels. Before I could reach for a berry, however, a loud pokémon cry interrupted me.

“ _Murk_! _Murkrow_!” When I looked up, I saw a murkrow perched on one of the branches of the berry tree. I couldn’t help but frown up at it. Murkrow weren’t very common in the area – or so Professor Elm had said before.

I shook my head. I didn’t care about some stupid murkrow, so I picked up a pecha berry and I would have put it on a basket that Emory had made me bring along with me if the murkrow hadn’t swooped down and pecked it from my fingers.

“Hey!” I protested and met its gaze as soon as it dug its talons on another tree branch, higher this time. It cried out another broken variation of his name, irritating me even more. My first idea was to sic Avalon on the murkrow so that it would faint, but I remember Emory telling me that some pokémon hunted in groups, and I didn’t want the rest of this murkrow’s friends on me.

So I thought to ignore it. I plucked another berry from the branch and placed it on the wicker basket, only for the dual Dark/Flying-type to come flying down at my direction and pecking the berry out of the basket with its beak. So I protested again. “That was uncalled for!” I screeched. I was tired, hungry, and sleepy. And if something were to annoy me while I was all three of these things, then there was hell to pay. Before I could open my mouth to yell again, however, a louder voice erupted from right behind me.

“Ygdrasil!” yelled out a Trainer. At first I thought that it sounded like a swear word from another language, but apparently not – I realized that when the murkrow came flying to its Trainer as soon as it heard him call its name. Turning around, I came face to face with the Trainer. It was hard to see from the little lighting sprouting off of the cyndaquil’s back, but I thought that the murkrow’s Trainer was decent-looking. Well, he wasn’t _bad_ -looking, but he didn’t look to be my type, what with his dark ensemble – patterned shirts and colored skinny jeans and long hair swept from one side to the other.

I should have asked him what he was doing here in the middle of the night. I should have asked him for his name. I should have told him to tell his murkrow to calm down. But instead, I commented in a way that made me sound like I was a snob, “That’s a stupid nickname for a pokémon.”

The murkrow started cackling in laughter, and its Trainer glared at the dual Dark/Flying-type to make it stop. The murkrow’s Trainer raised an eyebrow at Emory’s and my pokémon. I was proud to see that Avalon was glaring at him, as if to challenge him and his badly-nicknamed murkrow. “And what, do you think you’re some kind of nicknaming expert?”

“Compared to you, yeah,” I retorted. But before I could start a fight, I changed the subject. “My name’s Candice. What are you doing on the outskirts of Violet City this late?”

The Trainer frowned as if not noticing that it was dark out already. “It’s not even that late,” he said matter-of-factly, to which I raised an eyebrow at, “and I was supposed to be meeting a friend here an hour or two ago.”

I was about to point out that he’s been ditched, but before I could, Emory called my name once or twice before having Fire Wing incinerate a thicket of bushes and appearing in all his I’m-wearing-a-letter-jacket-so-I-look-like-I’m-such-a-bad-boy glory. And I had to admit, he looked like a badass. He locked eyes with Odin for what seemed like an hour and both guys stared each other down, before Emory cleared his throat and said, “What’s your business here?”

The Trainer raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t I already tell her this? I’m waiting for a friend.”

After a couple of seconds’ worth of silence, Emory told him what had been on my mind the entire time: “Bro, I’m pretty sure you got ditched.”

“Yeah, I was beginning to think that, too.” the Trainer frowned, and he actually began to look pretty downcast, as if he were wondering what the hell he was supposed to do at that moment, considering there was no way that his friend was coming to meet up anytime soon. So I said the first thing I could think of – sixteen words that were going to ruin my life. Sixteen words that I was going to regret saying even years after the moment had passed.

“If you don’t have anywhere else to go, do you want to maybe join our camp?” I offered. As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Warning signs flashed, loud and clear, in my head. Emory, Avalon, Ardent, and Fire Wing all shook their heads at me. The Trainer didn’t seem to notice, as he was too busy grinning so wide that it looked like it hurt.

“I’d love to!” he beamed. His murkrow cawed in agreement, and despite the smile on my face, I mentally cursed myself over and over and over.

So we walked him back to where our campsite was after I gathered some berries and placed them in my basket. I found out as we sat around the campfire on large logs that Emory never intended to eat them for dessert, he wanted to mash them for some pecha-oran berry jam. A large collapsible pot rested over the flames, the contents of the pot filling the air with the scent of homemade chicken noodle soup.

“Hey,” Emory pointed out in between mouthfuls of chicken noodle soup, interrupting the awkward silence that had been lingering in the air for what seemed like a couple of hours but was actually just fifteen or twenty minutes. “You never really introduced yourself.”

From the corner of my eye, I could see the Trainer smirk. And I felt like an idiot right then and there, because seriously, what kind of dumbass invited a suspicious-looking Trainer who was a complete stranger to share their camp, especially when they didn’t even know the guy’s name?

“Odin,” he said, a bright smile lighting up his facial features, “Odin Martell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this still ongoing  
> the answer is yes  
> no one's reading it though  
> lmao


	6. I Make New Friends (Sorry, Lys, I Know You Hate Them)

**Entrance of Dark Cave, Route 31, the Tenth of June**

* * *

Do you know what the weirdest thing ever was?

I didn’t remember the last time I had a guy best friend. I didn’t remember being really, really close with anyone before I moved to New Bark Town and became best friends with Candice. So when she invited someone – a _guy_ who was about my age – I felt two emotions bubbling up in me all at once.

The first emotion, excitement. This was the first Trainer we’d bumped into who wasn’t hostile, who didn’t want to take our cash and challenge us in double battles with his “top percentage rattata” or whatever that meant. (It was a damn rattata!) And adding a new friend (or two, if his friend ever showed up) to ease the awkwardness that came with being friends with Candice Ramirez? That sounded like a good idea! 

The second emotion? Jealousy.

The guy was attractive. _Ish._ It depended on your kind of guy, but if I were to rate his looks on a scale from one to ten, he would be a five. Or a six. I couldn't really judge. He wore dark clothes. He had long hair, his forelocks dyed brown. He had a murkrow. He looked like he played electric guitar for a band. (I would later find out that he was hopeless with instruments.) Candice had talked to me once – and only _once –_ about the boy she had a crush on, a guy named Astor or something, and that was when we’d stayed up a little too late (like, five in the morning late, which was a bad idea, kids, because nothing good ever happens after two AM.) And I’ve never met this Astor Black, but Candice’s description of him … it suited Odin.

We stayed up the entire night and talked about ourselves as Candice slept in her sleeping bag just a couple of feet away from us, earphones in her ears, heavy metal music blaring softly, yet audibly, as Avalon and Ardent snored beside her. She might have looked asleep, but I knew she wasn’t. She was playing with her earphones, untangling the wires. That’s how I knew.

Odin talked about himself. He liked to do it a lot, not that I minded. He was from Sootopolis City in Hoenn – which Candice would probably have found cool – but his parents moved him back to Azalea Town, where the rest of the family lived, a year ago. During his visits in Goldenrod, he would catch up with an old friend – the friend he was supposed to meet by the entrance of Dark Cave – and he decided earlier in the year that he wanted to travel the region with him and get away from his life in Azalea Town.

“I want nothing to do with the town,” he told me as he sighed and looked up at the stars. “When Wesley and I are traveling, I’m skipping the town completely.”

“You really don’t like your family, huh?” I asked. He replied with a curt nod.

So I told him everything about myself – _my_ family, the fact that I hated my mom, international sensation Isolde Guerra, hated the fact that I had to move from Mahogany Town to New Bark Town because my parents wanted some peace and quiet, how the best thing that ever happened to me came in the form of a pretty brown-eyed girl from Lavaridge Town named Candice Ramirez. We talked about our pokémon – he had two; a poochyena named Krillin and a murkrow named Ygdrasil, and I told him about Ardent and Fire Wing. It hadn’t occurred to me that both my pokémon were Fire-type before he asked.

After chucking heartily, I told him about Candice’s pokémon. “That trapinch – she’s had that with her since she was four, I think. Her dad, he’s Charles Ramirez, Kanto-Johto Elite Four Dragon-type Master. But that didn’t come from me! She hates special treatment because of her parentage. I’ve seen pictures of her as a baby four-year-old playing with her trapinch – she named him Pendragon when she was like, six. And her totodile’s named Avalon. She adores him. Too bad he adores me more.”

Within a heartbeat, he was quick to ask, “Are you two dating?”

And in response, I was quick to sputter out, “Of course not! That’s – that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. We don’t even–” And I’d glanced at her sleeping form, the rise and fall of her chest with every breath she exhaled, the way she kept a deadly-tight grip on her PokéNAV. I liked it. She looked nice, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. When I looked back at Odin, he was laughing at me.

“Bro, you _so_ have a crush on her,” said Odin. “It’s kind of sad, really. It’s usually the girl with the mad feelings and the guy who’s the oblivious one. Guess the roles are reversed.”

I realized years later that she was still a girl with mad feelings – just not for me, for Astor Black, whoever he was – and I was still the guy who was completely oblivious by being completely unaware of my own feelings for her. Odin had been wrong – the roles _weren’t_ reversed. But the blush was still evident on my face, and I turned to face the other direction, just so I couldn’t see the huge grin on Odin’s face. “I don’t have a crush on her,” I insisted. I didn’t know I was lying then. I usually never lied.

“Sure, you don’t,” Odin said with a yawn, then proceeded to toss and turn on his sleeping bag. “If that’s what helps you sleep at night, Emory. Wake me up tomorrow.”

And I fell asleep to the sound of kricketot and kricketune singing softly, in perfect contrast to the heavy metal music blaring from Candice’s earphones.

* * *

 

We woke up with a new guy sitting around our campsite.

When I woke up with the sunlight streaming towards my eyes, I grumbled and got up, considering that the route’s terrain wasn’t exactly the most ideal for sleeping. As soon as I began to roll up my sleeping bag, I looked beside me and saw that Candice was still asleep, still clutching her black PokéNAV tightly. A smile flitted across my face. She was a heavy sleeper, so even if I tried to wake her, she would probably just accidentally punch me in the face.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

And then there was laughter – a lot of it, and loud, too, loud enough to wake Candice up. With a frown, I rubbed my eyes and looked back to try to look for Odin. And that’s when I saw _him_. And I hated him immediately.

 _He_ was a rather chubby guy with blondish-brown hair and cobalt blue eyes and, fun fact, Candice actually once told me that she would have adored his eye color if his eyes didn’t always look at her with malice and intensity. Everything about him just _screamed_ obnoxious, from his voice to his pokémon – _his pokémon just had to be  a wigglytuff_ , I thought – to his hand gestures to the way he laughed and to the way he butted in conversations.

“Emory!” Odin called my name as soon as he noticed that I’d woken. He gestured to his friend and said, “This was the guy who I was supposed to meet by the entrance to Dark Cave last night.”

“Wesley,” the wigglytuff Trainer introduced himself, nodding at me. I couldn’t help but frown – even his way of nodding was obnoxious. If someone had told me two or three days prior to that moment that there was a guy alive who was actually like this, I would have laughed. I wasn’t laughing now. “Wesley Verity. You’ve probably heard of me before.”

I frowned. “I can’t say that I have.”

Wesley gasped in mock offense. “How is it that you don’t know who I am? Do you by any chance live under a rock?” demanded the wigglytuff Trainer. And I would have retorted something right back if I hadn’t heard some loud groaning right beside me. I turned to see that Candice had woken up, and she stretched her arms above her head and shielded her eyes from the rising sun. Before I could give her the standard “Good morning” to start off her day, Wesley had whistled loudly. “Who’s she?”

Candice turned towards the direction of his voice, and frowned when she saw him. I resisted the urge to laugh at the disgusted expression on her face. “Who in the name of the Distortion World are you?” she demanded to know, raising an eyebrow.

“I asked you first,” Wesley snapped.

“I asked you second,” Candice retorted through gritted teeth. He opened his mouth to speak, but she raised her hand in response, effectively shutting him up. A little tidbit of information about my best friend - she was _good_ at getting Wesley to shut up. It was a skill that none of us had ever gotten to learn, really, and she was a good traveling companion because of this. “Candice. Candice Ramirez.”

“Wesley. Wesley Verity, son of Jacobi Verity and younger, better-looking brother of Thomas Verity, Gym Leader of the Goldenrod City Pokémon Gym. The Verity family’s been the kings and the queens of Goldenrod City since it was founded.” There was pride laced in his voice, and when Candice glanced over my direction, she managed a smile. But it wasn’t a smile that said _oh, that’s cool_ , it was a smile that said _oh, you actually think I care_ – _that’s hilarious_.

“I’m guessing you don’t have any popular family members,” Wesley pointed out when Candice was too quiet.

“Not really, no,” she lied, and it amazed me on how calm and normal she looked when she lied. It made me think about the many times she may have lied to me. I wouldn’t have been able to tell. For some reason, that made me upset. “But popularity and names don’t really mean anything. Just because you’re a Verity doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a good Trainer or Breeder or whatever.”

“Oh, believe me,” Wesley scoffed. “I _am_ a good Trainer.”

“Really?” Candice gasped in mock surprise. Then she grinned at him, silently urging him to challenge her to a pokémon duel then and there. I was having another one of my ‘Candice, no!’ moments – basically, moments in where I thought she was about to do or doing something stupid.

“Of course! I’ll prove it to you. Single pokémon battle – right here, right now. The battle ends when a pokémon faints.” Wesley retorted and held up a yellowish liquid in a clear bottle – a revive. “I’ll be choosing my wigglytuff to battle. Which pokémon will you choose to be my wigglytuff’s foe?”

A sadistic grin flitted across Candice’s lips, and I almost yelled ‘Candice, no!’ when she picked up her half-asleep trapinch and set it down on her shoulder, whispering a gentle “Good morning, Pendragon, you can sleep later, but first we have to defeat this guy in a pokémon battle! Doesn’t that sound fun?” to her Ground-type pokémon’s ear.  

“This is Pendragon, and he just might have to kill you.” she grinned up at Wesley, who was trying hard not to laugh, because even I had to admit (sorry, Lys) that Pendragon looked to be a pathetic-looking pokémon standing beside the fully-evolved dual Normal/Fairy-type pokémon. But I knew not to underestimate the Ground-type, because Candice knew what she was getting into when she chose the pokémon. With proper care, the Ground-type would evolve into a dual Ground/Dragon-type like Farron, Charles’s flygon. That was her biggest dream.

Now, before that moment, I’d never really _seen_ Candice command Pendragon into battle. She’d talked about fights before, how she always sparred with the infamous Astor Black and that she didn’t really have the heart to spar against anyone because it just reminded her of him. It was unfortunate because I’d never gotten a chance to battle her before we went on our journey, and we’d always sparred separately.

“That Bug-type pokémon is literally two feet tall!” Wesley pointed out, howling with laughter. None of us bothered to point out that the trapinch was a Ground-type. It was something that Candice was going to make him learn for himself.

“If you say so,” said Candice as she turned towards me. Her dark hair was messy from tossing and turning when she slept, and I must have been looking at her for a while, because she started to self-consciously comb her fingers through her hair in hopes of untangling the knots. Still looking at me, she asked, a smile lighting up her facial features, “Morning. Want to referee?”

I didn’t know why she wanted to duel Wesley literally right after waking up, but shakily, I nodded. I’d never refereed a pokémon battle before, but there was a first time for everything. I slipped my pokédex out of my pocket and scanned the wigglytuff. The dual Normal/Fairy-type pokémon was in level twenty-one and had the following moves – Rollout, Dazzling Gleam, Sing, and Doubleslap. Then I scanned Pendragon, and was surprised with what I saw. Because the Ground-type pokémon was in level thirty-three, twelve levels higher than the wigglytuff, and had the following moves: Dig, Fissure, Crunch, and Rock Slide.

“You ready?” called out Wesley. He took her sadistic-looking grin for a yes. The first thing that Wesley did after meeting her grin was command his wigglytuff to go for a Rollout attack. In a flurry of pink and white, the wigglytuff rolled towards Pendragon with incredible speed and power, with full intention to slam into the Ground-type pokémon to lower its health.

“ _Pendragon, use_ _Crunch_!” called out Candice, and the trapinch was responsive, opening its large mouth and chomping down hard on one of the wigglytuff’s long ears before the Rollout attack could be executed properly. Hurt, the wigglytuff screeched out in pain and tried to pull away from the Crunch attack, but no matter how many times the dual Normal/Fairy-type struggled, he was still unable to escape the trapinch’s bite.

“Now, Rock Slide!” said Candice. Still not letting go of the wigglytuff’s ear with his powerful jaws, Pendragon looked up at the sky, and suddenly, a barrage of large rocks rained down from the skies to trap his opponent. The trapinch let go of the wigglytuff’s ear and shuffled away on its stubby feet before it could be trapped in the rocks. Wesley and his pokémon cried out in unison as the wigglytuff became entrapped in the rocks, but it slammed its head against one of the rocks and the barrage of rocks shifted to make a tiny cavern for the dual Normal/Fairy-type pokémon to exit out of.

“Crunch again!” Candice yelled just as Wesley cried out, “Wigglytuff! Sing!”

“Never mind. Pendragon, use–” she was about to yell a command, but she stopped herself mid-sentence before she could finish the command, because just as the wigglytuff took two steps away from Pendragon and opened its mouth to sing a soft lullaby that was making Odin drowsy (as I could tell from the corner of my eye), the trapinch began to use its stubby legs to bury himself underneath the ground so that he couldn’t hear the wigglytuff’s song, which would have put him to sleep. Only minutes later did I realize that Pendragon prepared himself to use a Dig attack. How he knew to do that even without Candice’s command, I didn’t know, but evidently, the trapinch was trained, and he was trained well.

“Wigglytuff, watch out–” Wesley yelled, only to be cut off mid-sentence when Pendragon decided to strike. The Ground-type pokémon emerged from a hole in the ground and struck at the wigglytuff, who cut himself off mid-song to shriek out in pain when Pendragon came at him with another Crunch attack. I raised my Pokédex and scanned both pokémon. Pendragon had almost full health, only took a couple of health points’ worth of damage when the wigglytuff executed that Rollout attack, but the wigglytuff had its HP on the orange zone.

Candice managed a yawn just as Pendragon performed another Rock Slide attack, even without his Trainer’s command. She glanced over at the wigglytuff Trainer in the other side of the battlefield, an innocent smile gracing her lips. “Still think that you’re a hotshot?” she called to Wesley. Wesley said nothing, only muttered an inaudible response under his breath, which I had the strangest feeling was a rude swear word.

Candice was a good battler, I realized, but if she was like this every single time she had a pokémon battle, I decided I didn’t like her when she was battling. In the battlefield, she was confident and sure of herself – she rarely was – and she _gloated_. The Candice I knew never gloated – she was always so humble. And here she was, technically cheating by using a pokémon that was ten levels higher than her opponent’s pokémon. This was the girl who was too afraid to cheat in a game of cards because she might get caught. It was as if I didn’t know her at all.

She reminded me of those playground bullies – everyone knew one from their childhoods. If this was what she was really like, I was having second thoughts about traveling with her, and this was our third day of journeying together.

“Stop,” I told Candice just as the wigglytuff’s HP bar dropped to the red zone, and had only three health points left. She snapped her fingers, loud enough to echo in the clearing, attracting her trapinch’s attention, and I thought that she was calling her Ground-type pokémon off. _Finally, something that was familiar in her_ , I thought. But Pendragon wasn’t shuffling himself back to his Trainer. Instead, it was preparing itself for an attack.

Odin, Wesley, and I watched as the trapinch curled itself into a ball and jumped up. Candice stepped aside, head tilted upwards, eyes glinting menacingly in pride, and watched as the trapinch stomped on the ground with its stubby feet once – then twice – and created a deep fissure that stretched from one end of the field to the other, entrapping the dual Normal/Fairy-type pokémon inside it.

“Wigglytuff!” Wesley cried out, and almost threw himself inside the fissure to get the wigglytuff back, and would have fallen and broken a bone or two or three if Odin hadn’t hauled him back by his shirt and reminded him to take caution. My mind was in an overdrive, and in that second, I saw red. Fists raised, Wesley threw himself at my best friend, yelling profanities and screaming, and would have thrown a punch at her if I hadn’t called him off. 

I realized that the loud snap wasn’t meant to attract Pendragon’s attention, to call him off.

The loud snap was an order to use Fissure, one of the only one hit KO moves known to pokémonkind. 

* * *

 

%MCEPASTEBIN%

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> summary is there's literally only one person reading this lmao  
> #imgratefulforyouoliver #iguess #ordoicallyouodinnow #idk


	7. I Realize That I'm Kind of a Horrible Person (I Learned It From Astor, Okay?)

**Outskirts of Violet City, Route 31, the Tenth of June**

* * *

I understood that maybe Pendragon and I were a little too harsh on Wesley and his wigglytuff, but hey, he deserved it, and honestly, Emory wasn’t allowed to belittle me and ignore me for being the slightest bit violent towards Wesley!

Okay. Maybe he was allowed to be. I mean, if he were to suddenly display signs of being aggressive during pokémon battles after having known him for two years and never knowing that he could be that vicious for the time I’ve known him, I would have been freaked out – really freaked out – and I would have ignored him. But why couldn’t he at least talk to me about it?

One of the reasons why Astor Black was my best friend was that he knew everything about me. From my violent tendencies to my behavior as a Battler to my sexuality to my penchant for spending a lot of money on TMs and stat-raising products for Pendragon – he knew everything. And he didn’t judge me for it.

So I couldn’t believe that Emory was.

I walked the rest of the way with earphones in my ears. Pendragon was resting in his poké ball from the wounds inflicted on him by that insufferable wigglytuff, so I brought Avalon out, but even he looked to be wary of me. I glanced up and saw that the three of them were chatting it up like they’ve been friends for the longest time, and though I couldn’t hear what they were talking about because of the earphones blaring Jirachiand the Starcatcherssongs in my ears, they laughed, and I didn’t want to admit it, but I felt left out.

I never felt like this before with Aline and Elyse and Jai and Jaslyn and Elias and Astor and Archer and Julian. We were always so loud, so talkative, and we gave each other opportunities to talk, and though I was usually shy and quiet, I was really never like that around them. But here, I was unwanted. The fourth wheel. I didn’t think I was ever going to fit in with this group, as long as Odin and Wesley were there. With Emory, I could fit in well with. He’d always been my voice of reason – maybe that was why I was afraid to duel around him. I knew well to stay in control enough to not break any rules in official duels (that was how I won championships as a kid) but in unofficial pokémon battles, the rules just flew out of the window.

I slipped my PokéNAV out to skip the song that was on as soon as the previous ended. I wasn’t a big fan of _The Augur_ , and considering the song featured Isolde Guerra I skipped it and did the same with the next tracks until I found a song I actually liked. Satisfied with the song that was on – _Hold On To You_ by Nate Wants to Battle – I slipped my PokéNAV back inside my pocket, only to bump into Odin in the process.

“Watch it,” I muttered, only to look up and notice that the group had stopped. I ripped my earphones out of my ears and tucked it inside the pocket of my black skinny jeans. “What’s going on?”

Emory stepped aside to reveal that he and Wesley – who were both walking in front of the group – had come across another guy, dark-haired and tan-skinned and brown-eyed, accompanied by a small magby. I groaned internally. Another person to join the group? Never mind being the fourth wheel, I thought, it was time for me to be the fifth wheel.

Except the guy didn’t look at all interested at Odin. Or Wesley. Or Emory. No, the guy was looking – staring, even – at _me_.

“Uh,” I said unintelligently. Because now that I looked at him, I had to admit that the guy was attractive, in a tall, dark, and handsome kind of way. But I didn’t linger on that thought for long, I was still mad at Emory for ignoring me and looking at me as if I was a monster. I mean, he wasn’t _wrong_ , but it still hurt. And now this guy was going to be our traveling companion and–

“Her.” the magby Trainer said, interrupting my thoughts in the process. “I want her.”

The blood rushed to my cheeks, and I couldn’t help but glance at Emory, who looked as if he wanted to kill the guy. “Excuse me?” I demanded, though I was red-faced and blushing. “By any chance, did I miss anything?”

“I want to battle you,” he clarified, dark brown eyes meeting my gaze. I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to make me feel better, but it didn’t. It really didn’t. “A battle in which I will be using my magby and my mareep. Do you accept my challenge?”

“Uh,” I said unintelligently. I met Emory’s gaze, and he was shaking his head. I remembered getting mad. I didn’t care what he thought. To him, I was a monster, so why not give him a show? This was the Candice Ramirez that he was going to have to get used traveling with – because this was _me_ , and so what if my own best friend was scared of me?

My upper lip curled into a sneer and gone was the uncertain version of me as I pulled out the poké ball containing my trapinch and, in a flash of orange light, released Pendragon and woke him from his sleep. This was where I was most confident in – the battlefield – and I suppressed a grin as Odin, Wesley, and Emory gave me worried looks. I didn’t care about them being worried about the fact that I was battling a complete stranger and I didn’t care about what would happen to me if I lost. Battling made me closer to my pokémon and to Astor Black and it was what I lived for.

Avalon leaped from my arms and joined Pendragon just as the other Trainer released a mareep from his poké ball. It was adorable – a sheep-like pokémon covered in cream-colored wool. Yet I could read the expression in its beady black eyes. The Electric-type pokémon was a force to be reckoned with, and could very well do a lot of damage to my totodile with the right attacks.

“Ready?” the dark-haired Trainer asked me, a bright smile lighting up his face. When I nodded, he urged me to go on. “Ladies first.”

I scowled. It was as if the guy was specifically hardwired to annoy me. It always annoyed me when guys pulled the “Ladies first” on me in pokémon battles. Astor used to do that. But considering the Trainer insisted, I locked eyes with Pendragon and nodded at him, and less than a millisecond later, he was already burrowing himself underground with his stubby legs. I glanced at my totodile and nodded at the red-bodied, beaked Fire-type pokémon on the other Trainer’s side of the battlefield. “Water Gun,” I ordered, heart pulsing wildly against my chest, like it always did in pokémon battles.

Avalon ran towards the magby at full speed, and shot a spiraling stream of water from its mouth at the Fire-type pokémon. The magby screeched in pain before following through with a Feint Attack under the Trainer’s orders, running up to Avalon’s right side, then turning invisible. “Shit,” I murmured under my breath, then ordered, louder: “Get out of there!”

Confused, the totodile backed up, only to ram into an invisible force. “Water Gun!” I yelled when Avalon came into contact with the magby, and Avalon fired another stream of water at the Fire-type pokémon just as he was tackled to the ground by the Fire-type. “Then Bite,” I snapped, eyes blazing in fury when the other Trainer had the nerve to smirk at my direction. I suppressed a smirk myself when Avalon chomped down on the magby’s arm with its huge jaws and it emitted a cry.

The battle was in my favor, I just knew it. From the corner of my eye, the mareep was warily waiting for the trapinch to strike. And my opponent Trainer got tired of waiting, so he ordered his mareep to shoot a Thundershock attack at the totodile. And that was when Pendragon decided to perform the second step of the Dig attack, and launched up from a hole in the ground and attacked the mareep. The trapinch followed through with a flurry of Rock Slide attacks, and when I snapped my fingers – loud and clear, for Pendragon to hear – and he prepared himself for a Fissure attack, I thought that the battle was over.

But as soon as the words “Attract” left the other Trainer’s mouth, I knew I was done for.

Even if I was quick enough to command Pendragon to get out of there so he could avoid the most annoying move known to pokémonkind, I knew completely well that Pendragon wouldn’t have been quick enough, because Pendragon was just … slow, but I liked to think that he made up for it in his other stats. And the next thing I knew, the mareep was making heart eyes at Pendragon, and Pendragon, well … was affected by the move.

I hated that move. I hated that move so much.

So I snapped my fingers, but the trapinch wouldn’t listen to me and was much too infatuated with the mareep to perform a simple Fissure attack. So I reset my focus back on Avalon and ordered him to start firing Water Gun attacks at the magby. But before he could, the dark-haired Trainer nodded towards the direction of my totodile and commanded the mareep to attack with three simple words: “Charge, then Thundershock.”

I suppressed myself back, tried to tell myself as I was forced to watch the mareep collected sparks, surrounding its body with crackling electricity, forced to watch as it performed its next attack, and as yellow sparks appeared around the Electric-type’s ears and it fired a blast of blue electricity at my totodile, I was pretty much _shaking_ , I didn’t know this guy, but I hated him, and I hated him even more as I was forced to return my fainted totodile back to his poké ball. I swallowed audibly, wondering what in the name of arceus I was supposed to do now considering that Avalon had fainted and Pendragon was in love.

I was thinking about this the entire time my opponent called his magby to keep Faint Attacking and his mareep to keep Tackling the lovestruck expression off my trapinch’s face. I just about froze there, and flinched when someone placed a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Emory, who was holding up his Pokédex and showed me that Pendragon’s health bar was at the orange zone. And I couldn’t even switch Pendragon out considering he was the only pokémon in the field and couldn’t replace him with another one, so he was just _stuck_ there, pretty much stuck there, Attracted to that damn mareep, and he couldn’t just do anything to that mareep.

“Ry, I–” I told him, but he cut me off by raising a hand.

“It’s okay to give up sometimes.” was all he told me.

I wanted to start crying. My best friend, who’d always told me to push on, and to never surrender, to never let them take me alive, was telling _me_ to give up. But I hated seeing Pendragon in pain so with shaking fingers, I unclipped the poké ball from my belt and in a flash of orange light, brought trapinch back in. The magby and the mareep looked confused, and looked at their Trainer for more orders to follow upon seeing that their opponent was gone.

“I, uh,” I managed to keep my voice steady as the Trainer walked over to my direction, probably to gloat or something. Guess this was karma for being horrible towards Wesley earlier. I didn’t know that this was the way the world worked. “I guess I lost that one,” I muttered under my breath, yet loud enough for him to hear.

“You need to work on your defense,” he said. I didn’t understand. Wasn’t he going to gloat…?

“Yeah, whatever, just–” I stopped myself before I said something I would end up regretting. I fished out my wallet from a pocket in my backpack and pulled out two paper bills. This was the part I hated about losing, because I could have spent that money on shopping for clothes, but no, apparently not. “Guess this is customary, whatever. Enjoy it.” I held it out to him, but he waved his hand – a universal hand gesture for ‘I’m not accepting your money.’

I raised an eyebrow before shoving the bills back in my wallet and into the smallest pocket of my backpack. When I glanced back up to meet his gaze – as if to challenge him to gloat – he pressed a poké ball to my hands.

I frowned. But before I could ask, he explained, “The pokémon inside is an aron which I named Excalibur. It is a dual Steel/Rock-type, and though it isn’t very quick, it makes a good attacker and an even better defender. And considering I told you to work on your defense, this will be a good pokémon to you.”

“I can’t accept this,” I told him. I’d wanted an aggron for the longest time, ever since I was seven and planning my dream team, actually – how’d he even _know_ something like that, anyway? – but I couldn’t just accept such a good pokémon from someone. He may as well just give me an Aggronite for the aron to hold when it evolved so that I could Mega Evolve it.

“You don’t even know my name,” I protested.

He only smiled at me in return. “Your name is Candice Alice Ramirez. Why you think I would not know the name of one of my own brother’s Elites, I have no idea.” He pressed the poké ball deeper into my hand before turning on his heel and walking away, his magby trailing after him. Though Odin, Wesley, and Emory pressed on with the journey, I watched him as he left, until he walked off into the path leading to Cherrygrove City.

I released the aron from the poké ball, and the small armored dual Steel/Rock-type pokémon looked up at me with a proud expression in its eyes as I scanned it with my pokédex. It was at level twenty-two and had the following moves: Shadow Claw, Rock Tomb, Iron Head, and Protect. It had decent stats and had the Ability Sturdy and had a Brave nature and was holding a Hard Rock, but I overlooked most of these details as I looked for the name of its Original Trainer.

And then I found it. After scrolling down for thirty more seconds, the name of the aron’s Original Trainer glowed in white on my Pokédex screen.

Arin Fuentes.

Younger brother of the Indigo League Champion. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what even is this story anymore  
> i don't  
> what
> 
> as you can see candice really hated this wesley guy  
> everyone knows a wesley  
> click the kudos button if you know a wesley


	8. We Reach the City of Nostalgic Scents

**Pokémon Center, Violet City, the Tenth of June**

* * *

 

It was nightfall when we reached the Violet City Pokémon Center.  After depositing the white-and-blue egg to Professor Elm’s PC account and signing up our names on a clipboard provided by the local Nurse Joy so we could stay in the city for a night or two, the four of us – yes, including Candice, who actually agreed on something with us – finally decided on two things: one, we should go find a place to eat dinner, and two, we should sign our names up for battles against Jared Falkner, the Flying-type Gym Leader of Violet City.

Odin, knowing that I had issues with Candice, suggested that she and I should go together to sign us up as Gym Challengers, and he and Wesley were off to find a cool, inexpensive restaurant for us to eat in, and would message us directions to the place once they find one.

So that was how Candice and I ended up walking through the busy streets of Violet City, trying to find our way to the Gym. I had to admit, Violet City was really pretty at night, with flashing streetlights and speeding cars and the Sprout Tower looming over the city, blanketing it under its shadow. It was _the_ _City of Nostalgic Scents_ , said the sign we read upon entering the city, though I had to admit, there really was nothing about the city that was nostalgic to me in any way.

That is, until Candice and I walked past a diner that had a huge poster advertising their pancakes on their window. It must have been the kind of diner that only cooked up breakfast stuff – breakfast for lunch, breakfast for dinner … I liked the idea of that – because the smell of pancakes wafted through the air, and it took me back to the first time as well as the last time I went to Candice’s house.

And she must have been thinking the same time, because she turned around to meet my gaze, a smile gracing her lips. “Remember the first time you came over my house?”

I laughed. “I was just dropping your homework off and you didn’t want Professor Elm to be mad at you even though I told you that he never got mad, right? And your mom is like, oh my gosh, Lys is making friends, and she pushes me to a chair and practically orders me to sit down and puts a plate in front of me and starts shoving some pancakes and your dad – who I never knew before that time was Elite Four Charles Ramirez – starts asking me whether I want maple or chocolate syrup and it was just…”

Candice managed a lighthearted chuckle. I missed hearing her laugh. “And I came downstairs to eat breakfast and walk to school with you and my parents were practically yelling at you to eat more pancakes and bombarding you with questions. We didn’t know each other very well then.”

I nodded, smile lighting up my facial features because she’s actually _happy_ for the first time today. “We should probably call Odin and Wesley, because we just found the perfect place to go to for dinner,”

And I realized two seconds later when the smile completely faded from her face that I probably should not have said that or mentioned either of the two names I said two seconds ago. Because she was quiet for a while, started biting down hard on her lower lip, even – which I knew was her way of saying, ‘I want to tell you something but I’m scared that if I tell you , you’re going to be mad at me, so I’m going to shut up.’

So I did her a favor and said, “Spill.”

She took a deep breath, and exhaled, “I really don’t like Wesley and Odin.”

At that moment, I knew that a storm was brewing between us and it was going to rain all over our friendship and that she was going to hate me after what I was going to say next. “Look,” I began, “Wesley and Odin – they really aren’t that bad. They can be friendly, and Wesley, he’s really funny. And yeah, I thought he was annoying at first, but first impressions don’t matter. Like, you thought _I_ was annoying the first time I met you.”

“That doesn’t–” she groaned, exasperated. “That doesn’t count! I just didn’t think that you were going to be okay with traveling with literally _everyone_ who comes up to us and asks! I didn’t want to be traveling with a bunch of _guys_ screwing around!” She said _guys_ the way someone would say _Team Rocket_ or _dirty laundry_.

“What’s wrong with _guys_ who want to screw around sometimes, huh?” I demanded. At that moment, I honestly felt personally attacked. “You do understand that I can be like that too, sometimes, yeah?”

“Nothing!” she snapped. “And you’re–you’re _tolerable_. You aren’t the problem, it’s them. Because I didn’t want to be traveling with Odin, or Wesley, or whatever – I just wanted to travel with _you_!”

We stopped exactly right in front of the Violet Gym – a large, tower-like structure with a dome-shaped roof that extended to the night skies, which was, coincidentally, across that diner. I froze. I never really thought she would say those words out loud. But even worse, it was _enough_. Just seeing Candice with tears in the corners of her warm brown eyes, her voice quavering – quavering, since when did Candice’s voice ever _quaver_? – and it was enough for me to call Odin and Wesley up and say, ‘Hey, I don’t want you as my traveling companions. I’m traveling with the girl I’ve crushed on for two years now. Alright, see you guys.’

But even worse? Even worse than that? I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know _what_ to say. She didn’t wait for me to say anything. She stormed inside the Gym, with me trailing after her, and almost bumped into a dark-skinned guy that was about six feet tall. She told him that we were signing up as Gym Challengers and I was about to reprimand her for being rude when the guy who towered over her, slid the sign-up sheet over to her. On it was a numbered table with three labeled columns – NAME, TIME, and POKÉNAV NUMBER – and she wasted no time writing down her information as well as mine, Odin’s, and Wesley’s, checking her phone for Odin’s and Wesley’s numbers. She then bid the Gym Aide a good day and walked straight out of the building.

Upon exiting the Violet City Gym, she didn’t even stop to talk to me. As she crossed the road and stormed straight back into the Violet City Pokémon Center, she didn’t stop to say a single word, and I had no chance to follow her. “Candice–” I would say, but she would raise her hand up – which I knew was her way of saying, ‘Don’t talk to me, or I just might bite your head off.’ And it didn’t make sense. This didn’t make any sense. Just ten days ago, we were planning our journey – all the places we’d wanted to go to, the places we’d wanted to visit, from the Whirl Islands to the Sprout Tower to the Ruins of Alph to the Bell Tower to the Safari Zone to this restaurant in Olivine City that cooked up really good crêpes – and just three days ago, we _started_ our journey, and now she wouldn’t even talk to me.

I mean, I probably deserved it, considering that I ignored her and left her to cool down in most of our journey from the entrance to the Dark Cave to Violet City, but still.

She marched past the automatic doors of the Pokémon Center, even waved a hand dismissively when Odin tried to talk to her to tell her about this noodle restaurant that he and Wesley walked past. “Lys,” I said, _begged_ , even, as she strode into the left wing of the Pokémon Center and past a concerned Nurse Joy and navigated the pastel pink walls of the Center to her room. She hovered the key card of the lock and pushed the door open, taking one last look at me as if to challenge me to say another word.

At this point, her roommates were beginning to look at me – and her – questioningly, but I didn’t care. I just needed her to listen to me. So I took a deep breath, and exhaled out, “Lys, I’m–” Only for her to cut me off mid-sentence by slamming the door on my face.

My heart dropped to my stomach. And I stood there, and it was quiet. And I thought that was dangerous. Because if Candice wasn’t yelling or kicking or blaring loud _The Augur_ or _We Came as Team Rocket Grunts_ music from her PokéNAV, then she was crying, trying to blink tears away from her eyes. The thought of her crying made me want to wrench my heart out with my own hands – it hurt too much to think about.

Wesley and Odin stood behind me. As if to lighten the mood or to keep my mind from thinking about Candice or both, Odin cleared his throat and said, “So, uh, I was saying, Wesley and I saw a noodle restaurant by the Sprout Tower and a lot of monks were eating there, too! So, uh, I thought that was cool. But if you don’t want to, then we saw this cool diner by the Violet City Gym, and it serves breakfast all day long. Uh, you mentioned once that you really liked pancakes?”

I almost froze at that. I turned to them, shook my head, and decided, “Let’s … stick with the noodle restaurant. I’m not really feeling pancakes right now.”

Wesley shrugged. “Sounds good to me,”

“Could we get to our room first?” I asked after feeling around my pockets and realizing that I had left my wallet as well as all my credit cards inside my backpack, which I left in my room. “I forget my wallet and I want to pay for myself.” Though Odin and Wesley protested that it wasn’t necessary, that they insisted on paying for me considering ‘me and my girlfriend just had the worst fight _ever_ ,’ I shook my head and I wasn’t taking no for an answer. As the son of celebrity Isolde Guerra and Gym Leader Ladon Guerra, I had all the money I needed, and more, and that was my excuse.

Shrugging, Odin and Wesley followed me as I exited the left wing of the Pokémon Center. The three of us walked past Nurse Joy, who had smiled at me as if to show support considering she’d heard my fight with Candice, and it’s unfortunate, because I couldn’t bring myself to smile back. We navigated to the hallway with the pastel blue walls – I hated that color – and as soon as we reached the room, I held my hand out for Odin or Wesley to slip me the card key, and I looked back when I couldn’t feel anything against my palm.

“Uh, anyone?” I asked.

Odin shrugged. “I thought you had yours. Mine is in the pockets of my basketball shorts, and it’s inside.”

Wesley bit his lip when I looked at him. “Don’t look at me, because I don’t have mine right now.”

My best friend was mad at me, I was locked out of my own room in the Pokémon Center, my items were inside said room, I was _starving_ , and my pokémon journey was going nowhere like I expected it to be. This day couldn’t possibly have gotten any worse. And if it was going to start thundering outside, then arceus damn it, because I did nothing to deserve this.

Except for the forgery of the letter Candice received from Blackthorn Institute. I didn’t really believe in karma, but I couldn’t help but think about how I got my best friend to travel with me across the region in the first place. Maybe it would have been better for me to give her the actual letter, which I still kept in the broken floorboard underneath my twin-sized bed back in my room in New Bark Town. Maybe journeying and meeting new people just wasn’t for her. I knew completely well that she was great at standardized tests and taking notes and cramming for final exams. I didn’t have the right to decide for her how she should make it to the Elite Four–

“Uh, excuse me.” When I turned around, I saw that a dark-haired boy who carried a basketball in his right hand and a key card on the other snapped me from my thoughts. Clad in a white T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts and expensive running shoes, the guy absolutely reeked of sweat. “You guys are kind of blocking the way to my room.”

With a shrug, Odin, Wesley, and I stepped aside. I half-expected the guy to walk past us, but he hovered the key card over the door handle, and when the lock clicked, he pushed the door leading to our room open and saluted with the hand he carried his key card in.

Wesley frowned. “Are you by any chance our roommate?”

“If this is your room, then yeah,” the basketball player said with a laugh as he threw aside the ball to some unwanted corner of the room. “The name’s Marion. Marion Reinhardt. And yours?”

“Emory Guerra,” I introduced myself, nodding towards his direction, and gesturing to the others behind me. “Odin and–”

“Wesley. Wesley Verity, future Leader of the Goldenrod City Pokémon Gym.” Wesley cut me off so that he could introduce himself, even grabbed Marion’s hand and shook it – hard. For some reason, that annoyed me – I didn’t go around introducing myself as _Emory. Emory Guerra, future Leader of the Mahogany Town Pokémon Gym but also future Indigo League Champion_.

“Alright, then,” Marion managed a weak – yet uneasy – laugh. “Are you guys just gonna chill here for the rest of the night? Because I was going to grab some dinner in this pizza place by the Pokémon School, if you guys wanted to come.”

“I’d like to go,” Odin piped up. He turned towards Wesley. “That okay with you?”

“Meh, I wasn’t really feeling noodles, so it’s out of the option. I’m just hoping that the pizza place cooks up pasta as well.” said Wesley. The three of them turned to look at me, silently asking for my approval. I shrugged. I didn’t really care.

“Pizza place it is, then,” agreed Marion.

We grabbed what we needed and headed out for the night.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um  
> why is this story even updating lmao it's trash  
> anyway  
> uh  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> i got nothing


	9. I Duel Jared Falkner to the Death (Not Really)

******Pokémon Gym, Violet City, the Eleventh of June**

* * *

 

I woke up that morning on the bunk above Emilie’s bed remembering two things. One, my Gym Battle with Jared Falkner, the Flying-type Gym Leader of the Violet Gym, was in three hours. And two, I still hated Emory Guerra.

After the fight last night, I grabbed my wallet and prepared to eat in that diner, prepared to scarf down seven pancakes drowned in chocolate syrup, all alone. But one of my roommates – a girl with bright red hair and warm chocolate brown eyes, Ariel, asked me if I wanted to have dinner with them in this newly-opened pizza place in the outskirts of the city. I’d said yes. So off we went with the rest of her friends, Jade, Emilie, Ariel, and I.

I expected to feel left out. I expected to feel like a fourth wheel. But I didn’t.

They told me that they weren’t from around Johto – they were from around Celadon City in Kanto, but signed up for an exchange student program along with a couple of other kids, and so here they were, in Violet City, to start their pokémon journeys. They all had different goals – Jade wanted more than anything to be Gym Leader of her dad’s Gym in Viridian City one day, Emilie dreamed of being a Pokémon Stylist, and Ariel aspired to be a Pokémon Coordinator.

Remembering last night brought a smile to my face. But I still had to clean myself up, so I climbed down from the bunk bed and grabbed my backpack so I could take a shower in the small bathroom in our room. I had to admit that it was pretty long – I was guilty of loving long showers, because the more time spent in the shower, the more ridiculous thoughts and ideas my brain came up with, and the more I didn’t want to get out. I dried my hair, hoping I wouldn’t wake up my newfound friends, and sprayed my hair with some spray I stole from my older sister so I could curl my hair. It was either Cadence hadn’t noticed that I “borrowed” it from her, or she knew and it was her I’m-going-to-have-the-house-all-to-myself-more-often-now-so-thank-you-for-that gift. Who knew, really?

And, yeah – so I was a Trainer on the road to becoming a Hoenn Elite Four member and I bought a hair dryer, a curling iron, and more clothes than I would ever need. (I mean, you couldn’t blame me, because I had my own account in Bill’s PC and I deposited most of my items there.)

Sue me.

I checked the time on my PokéNAV as soon as I was done with my morning routine. 9:32. I woke up around an hour ago. My duel was at 10 A.M. I figured that I was right on schedule. I exited the bathroom, praised whatever creator pokémon was up there that Emilie and Jade and Ariel were still asleep, and picked up my room card and my wallet and my poké balls containing Destroyer and Avalon and strapped them on my belt. Making sure the door didn’t creak on my way out, I exited the room so I could get some breakfast for myself and my pokémon.

As soon as I navigated myself out of the left wing of the Pokémon Center and into the main floor, I noticed that there were a couple of people lounging around the room. I understood – considering the beauty of the Center, I would have woken up just to use the high-speed computers by the circulation desk, where four teenage boys who looked to be around my age were messaging loved ones. A couple of other teenagers were also lounging around the couches and the snack bar, watching an episode of some show I’ve never watched before. I made my way to the vending machines situated by the snack bar, only to realize that one of the guys seated there was Emory.

The first thing I noticed was that he looked nicer now that he’d cleaned up, I guess, but his dark hair was still messy, small black tufts of hair sticking out like baby bat wings, probably from running his fingers through it – a sure sign that he was troubled.

The second thing I noticed that he was talking to a girl.

She was pretty, I thought. Ten over ten, I’d date her. And the fact that she was pretty and the fact that she was talking to Emory probably shouldn’t have made me mad, but it did. He could talk to any girl he wanted to talk to, just like I could talk to any guy I wanted to talk to … right?

Suppressing a growl, I put in four coins in the vending machine and punched in the pin code – B34 – for a pack of two pizza pops and the other – C352 – for a bag of Pendragon and Avalon’s favorite pokémon treats (I didn’t know about Excalibur), collapsing on the nearby couch beside a pretty, tan-skinned girl, who greeted me with a warm smile. After releasing Excalibur, Pendragon and Avalon from the confines of their poké balls and the pokémon on the couch, I cracked open the pokémon treats and left them to their meal as I broke open the pizza pops and started scarfing down my sad excuse of a breakfast.

When my pokémon finished their breakfast, I picked up Pendragon and set him on my shoulder – his favorite resting place, my mom always liked to joke – and carried Avalon and Excalibur in my arms and prepared to leave for my Gym Battle, throwing one last look at Emory before exiting the Pokémon Center. Suddenly, the girl’s eyes met my gaze, and she pointed me out to Emory. He looked back at me, and I was certain that that was the exact moment I turned red.

“Lys!” Emory called, chasing after me, Fire Wing flying after him. I rolled my eyes and pretended not to see him, and exited the Center as soon as the automatic doors slid open. I realized last night when I bumped into him in the pizza place that I couldn’t keep ignoring him, and that we had to talk, and two steps from the Pokémon Center, I re-realized it as well. So I took a deep breath, and faced him.

“What?” I demanded, looking up to meet his gaze. I _really_ hated being short.

“My, uh, Gym Challenge is after yours. Could I walk with you? We need to talk.”

Chewing down on my lower lip, I nodded. So that was how I found myself awkwardly walking to the Violet Gym with Emory and his fletchling. Emory had to keep pulling him off because he was pecking at Excalibur and Pendragon with his beak. As we walked, I wanted to say something – _anything_ , from an apology for being rude to him the night before to a compliment on his outfit (because where’d he buy the shirt? It suit him well – I figured that I liked V-necks on him now. It was new.) And I could tell by the way he drummed his fingers on his side that he wanted to say something, too. But we made it to the entrance of the Pokémon Gym without saying anything to each other, with nothing but the awkward silence between us.

Before I could knock on the door, however, Emory cleared his throat. “Good luck, Lys. Not that you need luck, you’re a–” he cut himself off, as if he was about to say something, thought it was rude, then chose to re-word the sentence. “Point is, you’re a good battler–”

“I know you think I’m a monster,” I cut him off, though I didn’t mean to. It had been on my mind for a while.

He blinked. “What?”

“You think I’m a monster,” I repeated. At this, Destroyer and Avalon began to glare at him. “Because of the way I battle. And I–I don’t know, you guys from Johto are softcore battlers, hobbyists, and that’s great and all, but I had a teacher and a training regimen and I guess I was rough on Wesley. Guess I deserved that loss against Arin and if you must know, I’m not very used to losing–”

I cut myself off. Because in that moment, the doors to the Gym opened up, and out came the devil.

And, uh, by the devil, I meant Arin Fuentes.

He looked the same as we’d last seen him – same dark hair in that cut, same intense brown eyes, except he traded his T-shirt for a well-fitting white baseball shirt and a pair of khaki jeans and maroon running shoes. Excalibur beamed when he saw his Original Trainer, and I couldn’t help but frown. It was evident that Excalibur still liked Arin, so why did the Trainer just give his aron away?

From the corner of my eye, I realized that he was trying to slip in a badge inside his case. He had eight already, and his new badge – which I could only guess was the Zephyr Badge – appeared to be his ninth. We met each other’s gaze for what seemed like an hour. For what seemed like _two_ hours. Then, he ran his fingers over the cold metal of aron’s head, flashed a gorgeous smile at Emory and me, and then turned on the heels of his expensive shoes to leave.

“Hold on a second!” I called after him. He didn’t bother looking back, and I would have ran after him, demand to know why he gave me the aron, if the Gym Aide from yesterday hadn’t called for a Candice Alice Ramirez. I turned around. “That’s – that’s me, but could you just give me a sec–”

“No can do, princess,” frowned the Gym Aide. “Jared’s itching for a battle.”

And there was no use disappointing a Gym Leader, I realized. So I nodded, agreeing to battle Jared, and looked back at Emory, who smiled at me, effortlessly soothing my nerves. He followed me inside the Violet Gym, flinched as the Gym Aide shut the doors behind him, and together, we ascended up the spiraling staircase that looked to go on for forever.

* * *

 

When we reached the highest peak of Violet Gym, my heart had already been pulsing against my chest.

But it was normal. I got like this before every single duel I had, but this was a battle against a _Gym Leader_. Statistics showed that eighty per cent of Pokémon Trainers could defeat only _one_ Gym Leader and collect their Gym Badge. Less than five per cent of Pokémon Trainers had the strength and skills necessary to defeat all the eight Gym Leaders in the region and make it to their respective region’s League Championship. Only the four best Pokémon Trainers in the region were allowed to compete against the Elite Four. Only one could be the region’s Champion, if they could best the Elite Four as well as the Champion before them.

I tended to ramble when I was nervous, so sorry about that.

But my point was, this was a battle against a Gym Leader. I didn’t want to be that one kid who showed up as a Gym Challenger day after day, doomed to forever challenge the same Leader because I couldn’t defeat them. My pride was on the line, and I was known back in Lavaridge for winning most of my pokémon battles. And besides, I was _Charles Ramirez’s_ daughter. I had a reputation to uphold.

It would have been easier if I had defeated Arin when he challenged me in Route 30, I thought. Then I would have been confident about this battle, considering that Arin just recently bested Jared Falkner. But then again, he was the little brother of the Indigo League Champion. He probably picked up a skill or two from his brother.

As soon as Emory and I completely ascended the top of the staircase, the Gym Aide, behind us, I was panting and completely out of breath. I wasn’t the most athletic person I knew and I had a terrible stamina, so that explained most of it. But that was when I realized that at the highest peak of the Violet Gym, there was an open battlefield, and bird pokémon circled the skies like mandibuzz and vullaby waiting to peck at rotting corpses. When I looked up, I came face to face with a man with curly hair as gold as the sun and cornflower blue eyes, and I thought that would’ve looked like a friendly surfer guy if he didn’t have a pidgeot perched on his shoulder and he wasn’t folding his arms menacingly. I could only guess that he was the Violet Gym Leader, Jared Falkner, the Elegant Master of Flying Pokémon. Or so the sign said.

“I take it that you are the spawn of the Dragon Master?” asked the Gym Leader, who bore his blue eyes straight into my soul and raised an eyebrow quizzically. _Spawn of the Dragon Master_ – I didn’t like the sound of that. “I have to admit, I was expecting someone who looked more experienced.”

With a growl, Avalon threw himself at the Gym Leader, claws and fangs and Bite attack at the ready, and would probably have chomped the Gym Leader’s head clean off if Emory hadn’t grabbed him and pull him away. In response, Jared’s upper lip curled into a sneer. “I would have expected your pokémon to be much more better-trained than that, Ramirez,”

“Jeez, you’re talkative, aren’t you?” I snapped, seriously getting annoyed with this guy. I was still exhausted from the several flights of stairs I had to ascend, don’t get me wrong, but I wanted the guy to shut up. “Your Gym Aide called me up here for a battle. So let’s battle.”

The sneer faded from Jared’s face and he stared at me for what seemed like an hour but what was in fact three seconds. He shook his head, and with a snap of his fingers, two of his pokémon – a fletchinder and a pidgeotto – stopped circling and swooped down to land smoothly on the rocky terrain of the Violet Gym’s battlefield. “The only resemblance you bear to your father is the family name,” commented Jared. “If I hadn’t known your name and someone were to tell me that you were the spawn of the Dragon Master, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

I ignored him, turning to Emory instead. I had to give it to Emory – he didn’t look at all nervous. Instead, he looked like he was just waiting for my duel to finish so he could have his turn. I held out the aron to him, and before he took the dual Steel/Rock-type pokémon in his arms, he set down Avalon and watched as he toddled to my direction, glaring at Jared as he did so. I have to admit, I thought as I set down Pendragon beside him, my pokémon were really cute.

“Well?” demanded the Violet Gym Leader. “Shall we begin?”

I looked back to lock eyes with Emory, wondering what he would think of me after this battle. Would we get into another fight? Would he somehow realize that I was only harsh when in pokémon battles and this change in personality didn’t affect the way I was like outside of these fights? I didn’t know, but all I knew was that I had to return my focus on the Gym Leader before me.

Jared starts by snapping his fingers and ordering a Gust attack. The pidgeotto was the one to respond, and the avian, brown-feathered pokémon flew in circles around the trapinch at high speed, but before a tornado could kick up inside the circle, I called for Pendragon to follow through with a Dig attack. From the corner of my eye, I could see the Gym Leader smirk, as if to say, ‘Is she trying to lose the Gym Battle on purpose? Everyone knows that Ground-type moves have no effect against Flying-type pokémon … Is she seriously the daughter of Dragon-type Master Charles Ramirez?’

I’d watched Jared duel when I was a kid. That was when I just got my trapinch, and I remembered that _Johto Weekly_ was on and they featured a segment with the newest Gym Leader of the region, Jared Falkner, the thirty-fourth Falkner to ever become Gym Leader of the Violet Gym. I’d watched him fight opponents after opponents and won every single time. I remembered dueling against spearow and pidgey and taillow and imagining that I was dueling a Flying-type Gym Leader like Jared Falkner.

So this? In my head, I’d rehearsed this duel a million times before. And it was going exactly the way it was planned.

“Now Rock Slide!”  I ordered as soon as the trapinch burrowed himself out of the hole. Looking up at the sky as his body was encased in a vermillion energy, I watched on as a barrage of rocks fell like shooting stars on the pidgeotto, the large boulders pinning the pidgeotto down on the ground by its wings. As the pidgeotto cried out in pain and Jared commanded attacks and orders from the other side of the battlefield, I could only imagine the look on Emory’s face now – a blend of shock and horror, of disbelief and repulsion, maybe.

“Now Crunch,” I ordered. With a manic glint in his beady black eyes, Pendragon obeyed, opening its large jaws and chomping down hard on the pidgeotto’s left wing. “And the other,” I said, and Pendragon crunched down – hard – on the pidgeotto’s other wing.

At this point, the pidgeotto was crying out in pain. From my peripheral vision, I could see Emory – hell, practically _feel_ him – becoming more and more scared of me by the second. Before I could command another Rock Slide attack, Jared held out a poké ball and called for the pidgeotto back with a loud, “Pidgeotto! Return!” He muttered a few encouraging worlds to his dual Normal/Flying-type pokémon before nodding towards the direction of his fletchinder.

“Stay close to the skies unless you have to attack!” yelled the Gym Leader to his pokémon. With a nod, the dual Fire/Flying-type pokémon with orange and black plumage dove up to the skies, and awaited further orders. With a sigh, I called Pendragon back in and sent out Avalon, pursing my lips. The battle wasn’t going according to plan, but this was just a minor setback, I tried to convince myself. A minor setback…

“Agility!” ordered Jared. I couldn’t help but groan – I hated stat-raising moves with a burning passion.

My head shot up to follow the fletchinder’s movements, but as soon as I glanced, the dual Fire/Flying-type was out of sight. This was my least favorite effect of the Agility move, so I perked my ears to listen to anything that resembled the sound of a bird flapping its wings. The only thing I could hear was a rustling of wind to my right, and almost out of instinct, I commanded Avalon to fire a Water Gun attack to his right. But before he could, he was hit by a Quick Attack move from the fletchinder, and toppled on his spiny back.

“Now Peck!” Jared said. The fletchinder’s beak glowed white, but before it could peck at Avalon, the Water-type pokémon spouted out a large jet of water from its mouth, directly hitting the fletchinder in the face. I couldn’t help but laugh. From somewhere behind me, Emory chuckled, as well, and for some reason, that gave me spirit. I hadn’t heard him laugh in what seemed like the longest time.

“Avalon, Bite!” I yelled before the fletchinder could react, and the totodile responded by running up closer to the pokémon and crunching his sharp teeth on the fletchinder’s left wing. The bird pokémon’s cry of pain could be heard from one end of the battlefield to another, and in the corner of my eye, Jared was beginning to get worried and was yelling at the fletchinder to push him off. “Now Water Gun!”

Avalon backed up to fire yet again another Water Gun attack, sending a spiral of water from his mouth to hit the fletchinder square in the chest. “Use Fly, come on, Fletchinder!” ordered the Violet Gym Leader as he clenched his fists so hard that they turned white. In response, the dual Fire/Flying-type pokémon rose up in the air, flapping its wings with all its might, and swooping down towards the direction of Avalon to hit him with full force, but just when it was seconds away from hitting Avalon with the second step of the attack, I shouted, “Avalon, give this all you’ve got – Water Gun!”

And so Avalon took a step backwards and the blue Water-type shot another spiraling stream of water towards, the Fire/Flying-type pokémon. “Fletchinder!” cried out Jared. When I knew for sure that the pokémon had fainted, I couldn’t help but avert my eyes away from Jared’s fiery gaze as I whistled quietly, and Avalon – the winner of this duel – toddled towards me.

“You’re going to pay for this!” yelled Jared as he released his pidgeotto. My heartbeat started racing faster – if that was even possible. _You have two pokémon and he has one_ , I tried to tell myself as I ordered Avalon back by my side and released Pendragon, _you’re going to be alright. More than alright_. The trapinch walked over to his side of the battlefield with his stubby legs, and though other, less-experienced Trainers thought that the trapinch looked nothing at all like a force to be reckoned with, more experienced Trainers knew that a tiny Ground-type pokémon like Pendragon would evolve into a ferocious flygon one day.

Much to my surprise, the first thing that Jared did after releasing his pidgeotto was to command him to use Roost, and the pidgeotto obeyed, swooping down and digging its talons onto the ground of the battlefield before being encased in a white aura. Though the move completely healed the dual Normal/Flying-type pokémon, this made the pidgeotto lose its Flying-type, and it became a Normal-type pokémon. This meant that Pendragon’s Ground-type moves had effect on the pidgeotto.

A sadistic grin flitted across my face. This was my chance.

I nodded towards the direction of my trapinch, and I knew in that moment I’d trained him well when he started digging up a hole in the ground. The pidgeotto stayed rooted to the ground, cautiously waiting for any signs of Pendragon emerging from the ground to attack. Eventually he did, rising from a hole in the ground and striking at the pidgeotto, who sent Pecks and Quick Attacks at Avalon as per his Trainer’s command, sustaining damage as the trapinch executed a perfect Crunch attack at the pidgeotto, as per my command.

I didn’t think the following move would work, considering that the pidgeotto was bound to be heaps quicker than my trapinch was, but I tried it out, anyway. I snapped my fingers, and Pendragon knew that only meant one thing.

At that point, Pendragon perked upon hearing the snap of my fingers, and he curled himself into a ball in front of the pidgeotto and jumped up. When he landed, the earth quaked beneath us, and a large fissure appeared on the ground in front of the pidgeotto. Though the pidgeotto tried to prevent itself from falling into the deep crack in the earth by flapping its wings wildly, it fell deep into the fissure. Jared Falkner ran over to where the fissure was, holding his pidgeotto’s poké ball up and returning the dual Normal/Flying-type to its ball.

He couldn’t even look at me as he tossed me the Zephyr Badge – my first badge, I realized. Except I didn’t really catch it, Emory did, and though I liked to think that maybe it was because of Jared’s bad aim, but it was probably because of my inability to catch things that were being thrown at me in great speeds.

“Wait!” said Emory as Jared turned on his heel to leave. “I still have to duel you–”

“I don’t think he’s accepting any more battles, kid. Usually, he only gives out three Gym Badges per day.” the Gym Aide said coolly as Jared climbed on the back of his pidgeot and flew off after throwing a glare at my direction. “It’s time to lead you two troublemakers out of the Violet Gym.”

Before Emory and I could protest that this was really unfair, we were dragged out of the Gym with his grip on the back of our shirts, Emory still carrying Excalibur and my other pokémon trailing behind me, my fingers tight on the Zephyr Badge – a shining white-and-blue badge shaped like a pair of wings.

It took me a while to get here, I thought, but this was a start.


	10. I Learn a Lesson or Two (Maybe Three)

**Pokémon Center, Violet City, the Eleventh of June**

* * *

 

Both Ardent and I were drained after a training session against Marion, who became one of my closest friends after one day. It was only in the middle of the battle when I realized that his pokémon was a sandile, a dual Ground/Dark-type that was rare in Johto, but very common in Unova, where he was from. No wonder both me and my pokémon got destroyed by Marion, seeing as Ground-type moves were super effective against my cyndaquil, a Fire-type.

I was looking for some peace and quiet when I sat on one of the couches in the recreation room of the Pokémon Center, calmly sipping from a bottle of water as I scrolled through my PokéNAV. I kept an eye on Ardent in the process; for some strange reason, she took a liking to rawst berry-flavored PokéSnacks, and was pawing at the vending machine. I complained that I had already given her two packets of the snacks – which, according to the back of the packaging, was not very healthy, as stated by Bennett Bakery Inc. – but she still continued to want more. Even though the whining was almost heartbreaking, it was also annoying, and as much as I wanted her to stop, I let her do her own thing. I didn’t really want her to burn me to cinders, like she almost did this afternoon.

Marion had introduced himself to me today. He told me everything I needed to know. He revealed that he came from Unova – Virbank City, to be precise – and belonged to a family of Pokémon Trainers who specialized in pokémon belonging to the Dark-type class. Eager to crush his father’s wishes to attend a prestigious boarding school in Unova to train to become an Elite Four, he ran away from home after stealing a hefty sum of money from his mother’s bank account to help support him in his journeys.

He was proud to show me a collection of all the missing posters he had collected in his travels.

In return, I told him everything that needed to be known about me. But strangely enough, I couldn’t bear tell him about Candice.

Somehow, it was too personal, sharing the thought of her out loud. It was as if I voiced our problems out loud, that would be the moment I realized that they were real. As much as I wanted to talk to her, I was content with pretending that the both of us were fine and that we were getting better. I knew she wasn’t the kind of person who would confront me about it. And eventually, I deluded myself into thinking that we were fine – and if we weren’t, then we were getting better.

With a yawn, I glanced over at the time. Upon noticing that it was already 10:58 PM, I decided to head back to my dorm room and sleep. My gym battle against Jared Falkner was at eight in the morning tomorrow, after all. I had forgotten about the gym battle until that moment. I was so caught up in the idea of Candice hating me and not wanting to be my friend anymore that for a second I had forgotten what I was really on this journey for.

Before I could come over to where Ardent was pawing at the vending machine, however, I heard the cyndaquil coo in delight and refocus her attention to a barefoot girl in an oversized T-shirt who happened to have a trapinch of my shoulder. Candice… what was she doing here? She looked puzzled upon seeing the cyndaquil alone in the recreation room in the middle of the night while everyone was either in their dorms chatting or asleep. My guess was that she was supposed to look around for me, and would have if not for the fact that her PokéNAV started playing its ringtone – one of her favorite Jirachi and the Starcatchers songs, I believed.

She frowned at her PokéNAV, but she still picked it up, swiping her thumb across the screen. “Elyse, what’s good,” she murmured into her phone as she fished out three silver coins from the pockets of her running shorts and inserted them into the vending machine before pressing the required numbers with a nimble finger.

Candice managed a laugh as Elyse – one of her best friends from Lavaridge Town in Hoenn, I remembered this time – said something on the other end of the line. “Isn’t it, like, four in the morning where you are? It’s been a while, yeah, but why’d you call?”

She paused for a split moment, and before I was about to pick up Ardent to stop her from bugging Candice. She was still nuzzling my best friend’s leg affectionately while she tried to carry three packets of PokéSnacks, and I didn’t know then that she actually liked it when my pokémon were friendly with her. I watched as she fished another coin out of her pockets and punched in the code for a rawst berry-flavored snack while she spoke on the phone. “Traveling with the others, are you? With Julian and Elias and Archer and Jaslyn and Jai?” She nodded as if she understood. “Mhm. And … Astor?”

I heard a laugh from the other end of the line, that much I could tell. But Candice did not look amused. In fact, she looked infuriated. “Why would he– arceus, he is so _dumb_ sometimes. And don’t you sound shocked at the sometimes! He can be smart when he needs to be. And … no, I haven’t spoken to him in a while.”

Silence. “I thought it was best.”

Candice rolled her eyes, but there was a small hint of a smile on her face as she ripped open the packaging of the pecha berry-flavored PokéSnack and fed the contents to Pendragon, her trapinch. “That was a _very_ subtle topic change, Elyse. I know you hate Astor. And Emory’s _fine_. Well, maybe, we aren’t, but he’s okay. He’s … alive, is that what you wanted to know?”

I watched at how thrilled Ardent looked when my best friend ripped open the rawst berry-flavored snacks and dropped them at the ground beside the cyndaquil. I was about to protest, but I didn’t think it was wise to interrupt their conversation. To my knowledge, Elyse and Candice haven’t spoken in a long time. But I didn’t know how to make my exit without it being awkward, so I stayed put and tried to drown her voice out.

Except, I couldn’t, really. Because _not_ listening to Candice Ramirez? It’s just impossible.

“No, no,” she said with a laugh as she nuzzled Ardent’s snout, smiling down at how adorable the cyndaquil looked. “I mean – Elyse, we had a bit of a falling out. He … saw me battling against this guy Wesley, who, I have to say, is the most annoying guy in the planet, and I guess … I guess he didn’t like seeing me like that.”

Candice chuckled nervously at what Elyse told her at the other end of the line, before saying, “I’m _not_ doing that to him. He might hate me right now, but there’s no way in giratina’s name that I want to make that any _worse_ –”

“I don’t hate you,” I blurted out quietly before I could stop myself. Shocked by the sudden intrusion, she turned around to face me, frowning. When Pendragon saw me, he seemed to look thrilled, and stopped eating his PokéSnacks for a second and toddled over towards me with his short, stubby legs. I knelt on one knee to stroke his head, carefully avoiding his mouth. The trapinch had crunched my fingers too many times to count.

“Elyse,” Candice muttered quietly. “I’ll call you back soon. Good luck in your journey, yeah? Tell the other guys to take care of each other. And tell Astor…” she shook her head, as if she was disappointed. “Tell Astor to come home.”

“Noted,” she replied to what Elyse said on the other end of the line. “Bye, Elyse. Love you.”

And with that, she hung up and slipped her PokéNAV back inside the pocket of her running shorts. She looked at me pointedly as if she was going to ask me a question, but before she could, I blurted out, “I don’t think you were supposed to give Ardent those snacks.”

Clearly, she was taken aback. Not the kind of thing she was expecting, but she raised an eyebrow, and asked, “Well, why not?”

“I already fed her two of those today,” I said quite nervously, although I wasn’t sure why. “I thought it was nice of you to give her those, though. How did you know that she would like rawst berry-flavored PokéSnacks?”

“Well, she’s a Fire-type, isn’t she?” she said, as if it was obvious. “Cadence is a breeder. I remember she once asked me to bike to the corner store near the school for rawst berry-flavored PokéSnacks for an injured vulpix that she was taking care of. I always thought my sister’s job looked easy until I realized how much she had to know about pokémon, really.”

“You know quite a lot about pokémon. You study them.” I pointed out.

She snorted. “True, but I never really learned what they ate.”

We both had a good laugh at that. And it might have lasted for a few seconds, but when it was over, we both looked at each other like we witnessed something amazing. It was in that moment when I realized that I missed her terribly. And there was no way that I could go on this journey with Wesley, Odin, and Marion if she wasn’t by my side.

I remember when the kids at school didn’t believe that I had what it took for me to become the Indigo League Champion. They scoffed whenever I was around. One of them had said that even if I were to make it that far, it would be because Landon Guerra had connections within the Elite Four and is closely acquainted with the current Indigo League Champion. And I happened to be his son.

But Candice believed in me. She knew I could make it. She told me I could. I didn’t believe her at first – she had never even seen me battle, but she knew I could do it, anyway. How could she simply assume that I could prove myself as the best of the best in _both_ the Kanto and Johto regions? How could she think that I could defeat all the Trainers competing in the League, the Elite Four, _and_ Jaime Fuentes?

I remembered one of our sleepovers back from when we still lived in New Bark Town. I remembered being curled up under all these blankets and reaching for some popcorn from a blue plastic bowl that she had by her side. I remembered watching reruns of our favorite television shows from when we were younger. I remembered looking her in the eye and asking, “Lys, why is it that you believe in me? I don’t even believe in myself.”

I remembered Pendragon crawling over to me. I definitely remembered the little smile on the corners of her lips when she said, “I don’t know. Don’t you ever look at someone and think that they’re destined for greatness?” I knew all too well how that felt – it’s how I felt when I looked at her. Candice Ramirez, daughter of the Dragon-type Master of the Kanto-Johto Elite Four. She was practically born into it and raised to battle from a young age. She had a better shot at making it to League Champion than I did.

“It’s okay if you don’t get it,” she supposed. “I don’t either. I guess that’s how I feel when I look at you. I see you as anything but ordinary. You don’t deserve to live in this boring town living this boring life. You deserve to travel around the region, challenging Gyms and making your way up. I can’t see you as a normal kid in New Bark Town. No … I see you as Emory Guerra, Indigo League Champion.”

I had never cried in front of Candice Ramirez, but if a moment ever came close, then that was it.

“Lys,” I cleared my throat, tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Ry, it’s nothing.” she assured. “Believe me, it’s partly my fault–”

“Don’t give me any of that,” I frowned. “I was the one who freaked out when you went _hard_ in that battle against Wesley’s jigglypuff, but I have to admit, even he had that one coming.” And it wasn’t a lie. The more I hung out around Wesley and Odin, the more I wanted to shoot the Verity kid. But more than anything, I said it to make her smile, because she looked as if she was going to cry. And when Candice cries … I have to admit, it’s not very pretty.

“Ry, I thought I was going to lose you,” she muttered quietly, as if she didn’t want to admit it. And when the words escaped her mouth, I looked at her. _Really_ looked at her. I could tell that she wasn’t lying. If the way her bottom lip quivered with every single word she said wasn’t a clear indication of this, then the fact that she was trying not to cry was.

“Hey,” I tried to tell her. “We’re best friends, right? You’re never going to lose me.”

She bit her lip – a sure sign that she wanted to tell me something but she was deciding whether or not it was a good idea. Eventually, she told me. “Today, I … received an offer.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Offer to…?”

“Travel with Ariel, Jade, and Emilie throughout Johto. We would be doing different things, but eventually we’d be going through all the cities together. Jade and I would challenge the Gyms and collect Badges. Ariel and Emilie would enter Contests that came up, since Ariel’s a Coordinator and Emilie’s a Stylist.” Candice clarified. And in that moment, my heart sank. Was she really going to–? Was this going where I thought this was going?

She must have noticed the distress on my face, so she continued: “I said no.”

I sighed in relief. But I didn’t understand. She would have had the time of her life traveling Johto with a bunch of girlfriends who _got_ her. “I thought you liked them. I bumped into Jade earlier and she said that you guys hung out a couple of times and they all thought you were cool.”

“Yeah,” she laughed. “But they’re not you.”

Wait. What?

“I mean, Ry. Come on. You’re my best friend.” Candice said. “After Blackthorn Institute rejected me, I never thought I’d get back on my feet until you asked me to go with you on your journey. You don’t understand how much that meant to me. You gave me a fighting chance and you lifted the weight of the world off my shoulders. With your help, I can still achieve my dreams, and I don’t need a certificate from that stupid school to tell me otherwise.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You ditched them. For me?”

When she nodded, I wrapped her into a hug. Thank arceus she wrapped her arms around my waist in return, or it would have been really awkward. Once again, I was overwhelmed by the fresh scent of green apples. I wasn’t aware that she continued to bring her apple-scented shampoo with her in a journey around the region. The little things made me realize that no matter how tough I thought Candice Ramirez was, deep down, she was the softest and most innocent person I knew.

We didn’t want to go back to our rooms after, knowing that we would have to be separated from each other, so we stayed in the recreation room, watching television shows and scrolling through our PokéNAVs and eating vending machine pizza pops and dreaming about the future. It was as if we were back in New Bark Town again.

And in that moment, nothing else in the world mattered. Not even my Gym battle for tomorrow, not even the potential possibility of leaving behind Odin and Wesley. _Nothing_ – except for the fact that Candice and I were friends again.

And in all honesty? That was all I ever needed.

* * *

 

“I’m so screwed.”

What I had completely forgotten about was my Gym battle against Jared Falkner, a Flying-type Pokémon Master. I had trained my two best pokémon – correction: my two _only_ pokémon – but they had no type advantages over Flying-types unlike Pendragon’s Rock-type attacks, which completely won Candice her first Gym battle and her first Gym Badge. But fortunately, I wasn’t really at a type disadvantage.

But needless to say, I was _still_ royally screwed.

“Hey,” Candice protested. “We both know you’re not.”

Both she and I sat on a park bench beside the Violet City Pokémon Gym, fifteen minutes early for my battle. The smell of violets and fresh breakfasts wafted through the air, but that did nothing to soothe my nerves. We had mended our relationship the night before, and once again, I felt comfortable around her. I glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow as if to quietly ask her if I really wasn’t, and she sighed. Very loudly, if I might add. Upon noticing my distress, Avalon crawled his way into my lap, and I began stroking his head absentmindedly. It was always such a comfort to have Candice’s totodile around. Odin and Wesley were always uneasy around him because arceus _damn_ could this pokémon bite, but he had never tried to bite neither me nor Candice. Even if he wasn’t really _my_ pokémon, he lived by the rule that any friend of Candice’s was a friend of his.

Which was a clear indication that she did not consider Odin and Wesley to be her friends.

“I’ve seen you train, Emory,” she reminded me. “I’d say you’re a good battler.”

“Well, what if I’m not good enough to beat Jared Falkner?” I wondered aloud.

Candice laughed. Honest to goodness laughed. I looked at her as if she went insane, and I didn’t know whether to feel even more nervous or to feel calmer because of her dumb _laugh_. She shook her head at me, as if she couldn’t believe what I just said. “Ry, I’ve known you for two years. I didn’t peg you as the type of guy who gave up so easily.”

“What if I don’t beat him the second time?”

“Then I swear to arceus that I’ll stay with you in Violet City until you do,” she shrugged, as if it was no big deal. But it _was_ a big deal – her words practically sunk my heart. She could be on her way to Azalea Town to collect her Hive Badge as we spoke, but she chose to stay with me for moral support. I was wondering if she really meant it, but I didn’t have the heart to ask her if she did, because that was beside the point.

“Even if it takes you a couple of weeks?” I grumbled.

She punched me on the shoulder, which hardly hurt. Candice could barely throw a decent punch. “Don’t you dare go around lowering your own self-esteem,” she scolded sternly. “Listen, you know I am terrible at pep talks, so I’ll tell you what. _When_ you win this Gym Battle against Jared Falkner, I’ll take you out to the diner that served breakfast food all day long.”

The fact that she emphasized _when_ didn’t make me feel at all better.

“And I’ll pay,” she added. My ears perked up at that. From my peripheral vision, she seemed to roll her eyes at that.

“You do realize that their pancakes won’t be as good as your mom’s, yeah?” I raised an eyebrow.

She shrugged. “I can’t really ask my mom to deliver me a care package with simply pancakes, can I?”

I started laughing at that. And eventually, she managed a smile.

And instantly, I felt better. I guess that was one of my favorite things about Candice. She was always there for me when I needed her, just like she’d promised two years ago.

Suddenly, the doors of the Violet City Gym swung open, and out came the Gym Aide, holding up a clipboard and squinting at the text on the sheet. He stared at me pointedly, before looking down at the sheet of paper once again. “Are you by any chance Emory Guerra?”

I nodded. “That’s me,”

The Gym Aide raised an eyebrow. “What is it with kids with famous daddies challenging Jared Falkner these days? This a trend or something? Anyway, Falkner should be expecting you.”

And with that, he disappeared into the Gym.

I slipped out the poké ball case from my pocket and picked up the one where Ardent slept peacefully. I released her from her deep sleep, and when she materialized in a flash of red light by my feet, she yawned. Beside me, Candice squeaked. She found Ardent to be one of the most _adorable_ pokémon alive.

“You ready to kick some Flying-type butt?” I asked Ardent as I picked her up and plopped her down on my shoulder. I looked over as she nodded reluctantly. Both Lys and I looked at each other and shared a laugh at that.

“I think the real question is, are _you_ ready?” asked Candice.

I thought about that for a second before realizing that yes. Yes, I was. And not only was she the only reason why I was ready, she was also the only reason I had the confidence that I needed to win this Gym Battle. In that moment, I realized that no one could ever comprehend how important my best friend was to me. Even I couldn’t comprehend it myself.

“Yeah.” I said after a moment’s worth of silence. “I guess I am.”

And together, Candice, Avalon, Ardent and I entered the Gym. And when the doors swung shut behind us, I closed my eyes and thought to myself, _There’s no turning back now._

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> so!! i originally wasn't supposed to post this but this is dedicated to my friend oliver (who i hate in this story for some reason, idk whenever i seem to write about friendships in fanfiction, they get jinxed and end) and he's probably not gonna read this but oh well oh well.
> 
> little blurb about me: i'm not very good at writing fanfiction. like, i never complete them. this is the first one i'm actually aiming to complete.
> 
> ALSO FRICK i almost forgot: if you like this story, then vote for it by clicking the heart thing on the bottom of the page here to help me win some nanowrimo contest??? thanks!!! [http://www.inkitt.com/stories/40253]
> 
> so uh, hope you enjoy candice and emory's fail of a pokemon journey.
> 
> (they don't get together for a veryyy long time, and i'm making sure of that >:D)


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